There are a lot of times when the premise of a movie sounds so ridiculous you have to tell people to just go with it. For others, the premise is just so silly you can't even say that with a straight face.
Thus, I give you "Free Birds."
What if I told you this was a movie about an oppressed people trying to stop the genocide perpetuated on its race? Well, "Free Birds" is about turkeys who travel back in time to prevent turkey from being the traditional main course at Thanksgiving. So kinda. If you close one eye and tilt your head sideways, you could see it that way.
Unfortunately, after this outlandish setup, there's not a whole lot that stands out about these birds. Owen Wilson voices Reggie, a turkey who finds himself in the posh role of the Turkey Whom the President Pardons Every Thanksgiving. He is shuttled off to Camp David to be designated as the pet of the President's daughter, only to find himself embroiled in a turkey resistance led by Jake (Woody Harrelson), who knows of a secret government time machine being tested on the grounds. The turkeys hijack the egg-shaped machine and travel back to the first Thanksgiving, where they start an uprising with the locals to keep the hungry settlers from killing and eating them for the upcoming feast.
Yes, we're supposed to root for the people to go hungry, and we see them, painted as buffoons by the script, as their food supply is perilously low, crying out for help.
So if you can look past these ... er, quirks in the script, you have left a tale of freedom and struggle in a pedestrian, pedantic way. You have the love interest (voiced by Amy Poehler), the skeptical "locals" who don't trust our heroes and the villains, who are essentially early American settlers who are starving. The laughs aren't particularly memorable, the characters essentially rely on the personality of the actor playing them and have little or no nuance on their own (Reggie tells us turkeys are generally considered "dumb"; the main character trait for these talking turkeys is that they are not).
Your kids will probably like "Free Birds." It hits all of the notes and does a passable job of repeating the formula of countless other family-friendly features.
But compared to similar films, it lacks that panache, attitude or something to set it apart, and is akin to making a lasagna with the bland, flavorless sauce. It just leaves you unsatisfied and disappointed.