Dallas animation studio Reel FX makes their big splash into animated features this weekend with the release of their first film Free Birds. Directed by Jimmy Hayward and released by Relativity Media, the film follows the adventures of two turkeys (voiced by Woody Harrelson and Owen Wilson) who travel back in time to take turkeys off the first Thanksgiving menu.
The film has the dubious distinction of being this year’s worst reviewed animated feature. The average critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes is just 22% positive, which is even lower than Weinstein Co.’s Escape from Planet Earth.
The standard criticism has been that the film is unoriginal, as per Miriam Bale’s review in the New York Times:
