A different way of telling a story

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Why this movie sucks:1). Too much back story and side stories: dead son, blocked writer/incomplete dissertation, cheating wife, jealous husband, islanders v. vacationers, creepy old salt. There is more of this junk than there are birds. These other stories compete too much with the main story of the birds.2). The bird attacks are few and far between. They're not scary, just lame, watered-down, made-for-TV dribble. There is really no sense of apprehension or fear just a lot of high-pitched, ear-piercing little girl screaming. 3). If you didn't already hate little kids beforehand, this movie will put you in the club. These must be the most annoying, whining, little brats in film history. Though, an excellent source of birth control --- you'll never want to have sex again for fear of like progeny. It's a real shame the father saved the kid and not the dog. Although that dog barked too much to the point of annoyance too --- clearly of the same family.4). The movie just abruptly ends. Maybe they all got tired of making a crappy flick. It's a real shame they didn't realize it sooner and save the time and expense of making a movie at all. Technically the production aspects (filming, sound, acting somewhat) are fairly done; I've seen a lot worse. The overall story is a bad joke though. So how does this flick compare to other 'bird' movies. This dud rates 2 out of 10.The original Hitchcock's movie 'The Birds' would get a 7 out of 10.The Sci-Fi channels version from 2007, Kaw, gets 4 out of 10.

"The Birds II: Land's End" is a somewhat unspectacular sequel with a few decent parts.**SPOILERS**Arriving in Land's End, Ted Harken, (Brad Johnson) and his family, wife May, (Chelsea Field) and his daughters Jill, (Stephanie Milford) and Joanna, (Megan Gallacher) find the isolated island community endearing. While trying to get their new jobs started, they quickly find that the local bird population is somewhat more intrusive than they expected, constantly flying around their home and getting close on several attempts to injuring them. When they find an injured baby bird, they take it in to care for it and only manage to eventually upset the larger flock of birds, leading them in to attack the house and even manage to start going after the other townspeople. Finally listening to their stories, they try to get away from the island before the birds' attack get even more vicious.The Good News: This here didn't have a whole lot of rather decent areas. The main one here is that there's a really nice build-up towards the attacks. From the beginning, there's a fine sense that there's somewhat wrong with what they're doing, and as the attacks escalate and get more vicious and brutal, it makes them seem like a rather imposing threat, which is just pleasant and really appreciated. The swarms of them flying around over the water or simply lying around the beach-front that it soon grows to a really uncomfortable proportion. The few attacks in here do have a really creepy undertone, especially the first one in the bedroom. With an effective set-up that doesn't betray the terror to come, coming off as logical and somewhat unexpectedly, it's a real winner. A later scene where they attack the house en-mass is just as good, coming off with a couple of spectacular shots of the whole flock rising as one to swarm and peck away, with plenty of other little scenes that really look nice. The main one is the huge attack on the outdoor boating dock, which is where the most tension comes from. The amount of birds flying around and pecking and swarming anything in sight is really nice, the move onto the sea-ferry allows for plenty of action, and the different defense tactics make for really interesting scenes. That alone makes it watchable, and is alone in making this one barely beat above average.The Bad News: This one here isn't that terrible, but it still packs in a couple of really unnecessary problems. The main issue with this one is the film is really only worthwhile for the bird attacks, leaving everything else to be quite dull and lame. This is driven by the fact that there's really only a couple of attacks, leaving the rest of the time for a series of really lame subplots that don't have any bearing on how the film goes. The infidelity point goes nowhere, gets dropped halfway through and is then pretended to have not existed at all, with the potential resolution being completely thrown-out since that part of the film had been dropped. There's also the part about the unbelieving townsfolk who only ignore the actual warnings from the outsiders since it interferes with their traditions, despite having plenty of evidence to back up the claims. This is compounded with the incredulous amount of time it's spent on them manages to eat up a ton of time that the film could've used towards making more attacks, or played around with something else in the vain attempt to make it feel more interesting. As it stands, that's the only reason why this one is so dull, and this one really could've had something else to try to bump up the action in the film. By using so many non-action scenes to make the film feel so unexciting, using enough of the other subplots to really make a whole other film, this one ends up with a potentially interesting part that goes nowhere due to how it's filled with stuff that goes nowhere. That knocks it down a lot.The Final Verdict: With only a scant few amount of good parts, this one can't overcome the overwhelming dullness exhibited by it's failed subplots. This one is really only for the completists who have to see everything in the genre or aficionados of bad movies, otherwise steer clear of this one.Rated R: Violence, mild Language and animal violence

If there had never been a THE BIRDS would this still suck? Yes. Since there is, thank god, an original THE BIRDS does this suck even more? Yes.Watch fast for the scene where the white bird becomes a black bird before it explodes. Otherwise watch fast for any other film for a better use of your time.That's just on par with the lousiness of this on every level. Truly awful from a script from the usually awful Jim and Ken Wheat, made worse by a totally incompetent production, everyone should have used pseudonyms.Perhaps the Color PSYCHO makes this look slightly better by comparison, probably not.

A belated, acceptable sequel-remake of Hitchcock's superb 1963 film, this isn't quite the turkey you might expect to see after all the excessively hostile reviews it has received. Well-paced and well-shot, it builds to some fairly good attack sequences (it's much gorier than the original, of course). However, it lacks that special apocalyptic edge that Hitchcock's film had; it seems to be much more modest. (**1/2)