It's no Christmas turkey

Free Birds (PG)
Running time 91 minutes
Rating:***
Not being a great lover of turkey (either alive or dead on a plate), any animated film about potential festive fare fleeing the table for warmer and safer climes tends to leave me in a ho-hum sort of mood.
I wasn’t over-excited by Chicken Run (2000) when Mel Gibson provided the characterisation for a freedom- fighting chicken, and Chicken Little (2005) was a real turkey too (sorry).
So, Free Birds was facing an uphill task with this audience.
But, I have to say – apart from one or two historical issues – this is a turkey film that is not a ‘turkey’ in film-reviewing parlance, and will keep the adults interested and the children amused.
Director Jimmy Hayward, who brought Finding Nemo to the screen, has assembled a fine vocal cast, including ‘Sulu’ from Star Trek, who voices the time machine S.T.E.V.E.
The story tells of Reggie, the misfit bird (Owen Wilson) who is among that most dangerous of creatures, an intelligent turkey. He particularly takes exception to Thanksgiving feasts where turkey is the star of the show.
He leaves the farm after being declared the Pardoned Turkey by the President but is kidnapped by Jake (Woody Harrelson), a freedom-fighting turkey who is on a mission to find a secret time machine, go back to 1621, when the turkey-eating tradition originated, and persuade the colonists of the day to take turkey off the menu.
The pair manage to find the machine (S.T.E.V.E.), and off they go and battle with the colonists, who sound American (they were British) and persuade the local turkeys to help out.
There is some macho prancing involving Jake and the local turkey ‘heavy’, some romance with a local turkey maiden, and all kinds of film references that will keep cinema buffs chortling for weeks.
You can’t pretend this is a sensible film, but it will keep the people happy, so long as they ignore the time machine theme and the idea that pizza deliveries (to replace the turkey) can be made backwards in time rather than never arrive at all.
This film may well amuse American audiences more than the rest of us, because we don’t do Thanksgiving. Even so, it’s amusing and has some interesting takes on history that are irritating but do no real harm.