I’m Blue, Da Ba Dee Da Ba Dai (Also, Global Warming)

Who knew there was more to the Birdemic saga? Well, not really, but director James Nguyen is sure as Hades going to try, and one of his latest efforts is 2022’s Birdemic 3: Sea Eagle. Buckle up, everyone, because this movie is infuriatingly bad and has all the subtlety and finesse of a monster truck rally.

The first thing to notice about this movie is how much blue there is. Seriously. There’s not only a blue filter on the camera for the entire movie, but blue is everywhere. Blue buildings, clothes, cars, picnic benches, awnings, umbrellas, whatever. It all looks vaguely Smurflike.

Second, the movie includes the usual mistakes of its predecessors, but it’s different when there’s more money involved. And when there’s a concerted effort to make the same mistakes again, which means what made the other movies fun isn’t going to be there.

Birdemic 3 opens with shots of a guy, Evan (Ryan Long), driving his bright blue sports car through the Santa Cruz Mountains and then walking on the pier. And walking. And walking. And walking. There’s something very familiar about all of this.

And just as the immortal Rod did in the first Birdemic movie, Evan spies a beautiful girl, Kim (Julia Culbert). Only she’s on the beach instead of in a diner, she’s a marine biologist instead of an aspiring model, and she and Evan didn’t go to high school together.

When Evan sees Kim, she’s pouring sea water from one container to another for some reason, and Evan strikes up a conversation with her. After some chitchat about the ocean’s high acidity giving sea lions cancer, Evan asks Kim to go out for a bite to eat. He’s a gerentologist. They can learn a lot from each other.

After a brief interlude of Evan watching a bombastic documentary about global warming at home on his couch, it’s time for his date with Kim. Like the gentleman he is, Evan brings her roses and they drink what seems to be very flat beer outside a restaurant while talking about global warming. Evan’s also big on supplements to decelerate aging.

Oh, and Evan and Kim are both huge fans of Vertigo, because James Nguyen.

After dinner it’s time for the first of many litanies on global warming, starting with Evan and Kim watching a tiny group of protesters yell climate change buzzwords and not much else. Evan and Kim look bored. Very, very bored. Do they keep walking? Nope. Not for two and a half interminable minutes.

Then they meet a very freaked out surfer who runs up to them gasping that a shark almost bit his hand off.

He launches into this little tirade:

“A few years ago, it was very rare to find sharks in the Santa Cruz ocean, but now because of global warming and climate change, the sea warmed, and now they’re out there. It’s like every time I surf I’m playing Russian roulette with sharks. I’m seriously considering quitting surfing. It’s too dangerous, you know?”

Um. FALSE. Global warming isn’t bringing sharks to Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz is within what’s called the Red Triangle, so Great Whites congregate there at certain times of year and they occasionally go after people. Any Northern or Central California surfer or boogie boarder can attest to this. Heck, my husband used to boogie board in Santa Cruz.

It gets even better. Evan and Kim meet a realtor (Marc DeNola) on the beach, who’s just finished building a little sand house with a “For Sale” sign next to it, natch. When Evan tells him he wants to buy a house surrounded by trees, preferably in a forest, the guy tells him that the Camp Fire, which wiped out almost the entire town of Paradise, California in 2018, was caused by global warming.

Um. FALSE, again. Although the media tried its hardest to blame climate change at the time (CNN is one example), the culprit was faulty equipment that PG&E refused to replace and maintain. Paradise residents sued PG&E over it and won, but Paradise still hasn’t been rebuilt, although they’re making progress. I’ve met people who were displaced by that fire and they radiate sadness, even years later. There was no reason whatsoever for that fire to happen.

Obviously Mr. Nguyen didn’t do much, if any, research before making this movie, but that’s to be expected by now. Either way, Birdemic 3 Must. Push. Global. Warming. Even if it means misrepresenting a terrible event in which thousands of real Californians lost everything. Tacky, Mr. Nguyen. Tacky and disgusting.

But I digress.

Anyway, there’s definitely a pattern here. These characters can’t go anywhere without talking about global warming. When the realtor shows a house to Evan, he shows him the paintings in the living room more than the house. All global-warming themed, of course. When Evan and Kim are staring at a gray whale skeleton, they talk about how everyone is going to be like that someday because of global warming.

While they’re standing there, a guy who’s basically Elon Musk walks up to them and talks about this space elevator he’s building that will somehow both clean up the atmosphere and save people from Earth’s destruction. Nothing about where this thing transports people to or what they’ll do when they get there, but whatever. It’s the thought that counts.

Even when Evan and Kim dance alone to a Damian Carter song and whoever the second guy is that they got to sing after Damian Carter, Carter’s song leads off with some Doomsday stuff about the oceans rising and the earth warming, but that’s OK because the object of his affection is cosmically gorgeous. Groan.

And what sequel would be complete without a callback to its predecessors? Evan and Kim meet the famous Rod (Alan Bagh) and his new girlfriend, Katie (Victorya Brandart), Rod and Nathalie having “parted as friends” before Birdemic 3 opens. The four of them talk some more about global warming, of course, because why not? They’ve got momentum now, such as it is.

The three exceptions to the constant global warming drumbeating? When Evan and Kim stand outside San Juan Bautista, when they talk about Hitchcock, and when they have their obligatory unromantic sex scene. That’s it. In all the other scenes global warming is the only topic of conversation. Well, and there are a few mentions of those menacing birds that ravaged Half Moon Bay in the first movie.

Yeah. About those birds. They don’t show up until the last thirty minutes. Not much happens beyond the usual wildly inaccurate swatting and shots being fired. Rod does get a couple of good moments in, though, such as when he finds a pristine white tube hanger out in the middle of the forest and uses it to swat fruitlessly at those silly birds. Or when our four go into a bar, see that everyone in there is dead, and Rod yells, “These birds are stressing me out! I need a beer.”

Rod is only slightly more animated than his costars, particularly Evan, who’s more wooden than a garden gnome. Every single character in this movie talks as if they’re on an infomercial, which they are. They’re selling global warming.

YouTuber Cody Leach said of Birdemic 3: “When you walk into a screening and the first thing they do is sit a complimentary shot of tequila in front of you before the film you’re about to watch, you know you’re in for some s***.”

The fun isn’t over yet, either. Apparently there’s going to be a fourth installment in the franchise, Birdemic 4: Garden of Paradise, and the website describes it thusly: “A flock of golden eagle attached San Francisco. Why did the bird attacked? Who will survive?”

It’s going to be epic. Epically bad, more likely than not, but still epic.

Another post is going up tomorrow. Thanks for reading, all, and I hope to see you then…

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Birdemic 3: The Sea Eagle is available on DVD and Blu-ray from Amazon as well as on Tubi.

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