Is Hollywood scheming to turn your little ones into strident vegetarians? Could be, but I wish they’d do it with material more inspired than “Free Birds,” a forgettable — and occasionally borderline offensive — animated tale of turkeys trying to take back Thanksgiving.
Reggie (Owen Wilson) has always been ahead of the flock: “I’m not going to dress it up,” he says. “Turkeys are dumb.” Still, he tries in vain to warn his vapid relatives about the upcoming November carnage, and in the process ends up with a presidential pardon.
Just as he’s settling into a life of ease at Camp David, Reggie’s recruited by barrel-chested turkey activist Jake (Woody Harrelson), who needs his help to steal the government’s time machine (voiced by the silken-toned George Takei) to travel back to the first Thanksgiving and get their brethren off the menu for good.
There, they meet a comely bird named Jenny (Amy Poehler), who’s wild-turkey royalty; her tribe is depicted as some sort of weird parallel to Native Americans, especially when they paint horizontal lines on their cheeks and chant as they’re preparing to go to war against poultryeating humans. Given that actual Native Americans also eventually show up, it’s a head-scratching move; given Reggie’s earlier crack about turkey intelligence, it seems just plain ill-advised.
More thought-provoking is Jake’s description of his childhood in a factory farm, depicted as a nightmarish gray prison full of miserable, obese birds. It ought to have some kids asking questions about the provenance of their upcoming T-day dinner — not a bad thing — though it may also be upsetting for younger ones, as will the scene of a bloodthirsty turkey hunt undertaken by a “Deadwood”-like pilgrim posse.
No animated movie is allowed to be 2-D these days, but “Free Birds” makes decent use of its three dimensions, especially during a puffed-up turkey wattle fight between showboating toms, and with little round fluffball chicks, tailor-made for mass marketing.
Still, the characters’ bouncy-ball cuteness isn’t enough to make up for recurring tasteless moments. Director Jimmy Hayward’s (“Horton Hears a Who!” and “Jonah Hex”) affinity for cringey retro humor is reinforced when one Native American weighs in on anchovy pizza: “Tastes like dirty sock. Still better than my wife’s cooking, am I right?”
Because nobody benefits from hoary stereotypes more than kids, am I right?