Les Aventures de Youbi le pingouin

Hubie (Martin Short) a good hearted but clumsy Adélie penguin with a stutter has a crush on Marina (Annie Golden), a kind soft spoken Penguin. While Hubie does find a perfect pebble to propose with, the cruel alpha male, Drake (Tim Curry), also has his eyes on Marina throws Hubie off a cliff and Hubie becomes lost at sea. When Hubie is captured by humans he teams up with a brash abrasive Northern rockhopper penguin named Rocko (Jim Belushi) who dreams of flying in an effort to return home before Marina is forced to marry Drake.

The final film of Don Bluth Irish based studios that had been the creator's home from 1985 until 1995. The final film in a three picture financing deal with Hong Kong based Media Assets, the movie had a tumultuous development cycle with Warner Bros. Delaying production to focus on Thumbelina and distribution changing hands to MGM who demanded late in production changes to the film. Director's Don Bluth and Gary Goldman jumped ship from the floundering studio in favor of a lucrative deal with 20th Century Fox to set up an Animation Studio, disowning the film which has no credited director, though MGM claimed this was totally Bluth and Goldman's film. With a troubled production history it's no wonder why the movie feels like a disjointed mess, albeit one with fleeting moments of beauty.

The impetus of The Pebble and the Penguin was spurred very much by the success of Disney's Beauty and the Beast, in Bluth's words something for children and "the date movie crowd", that really doesn't come through all that well. While the movie is technically a love story, Hubie and Marina are basically a done deal within the first 10 minutes. Not only are they together, but there's really no defining character to Marina other than she isn't a superficial airhead like her friends are. We know she's nice....and that's it. Marina spends the rest of the movie doing two things: Rejecting Drake and pining for Hubie. Drake is clearly modeled after Gaston with his bodybuilder physique and the ability to make women swoon and faint by entering a room and he's perfectly serviceable as a villain, only elevated by the fact that Tim Curry voices the character and brings energy to what's essentially a very underwritten role. Rocko was probably my favorite character, if only because I found Jim Belushi's abrasive way in which he portrays the character to be a nice break from the alternating bounciness and blandness of the other characters, but even Rocko seems inconsistently written with him changing moods or motivations on a dime for no other reason than the plot needs him to. There's a major revelation wherein Rocko finds out he was lied to by Hubie and his anger lasts all of maybe 30 seconds at most and then it continues the same way with no further mention. And then there's Hubie, on the surface he seems like a decent enough underdog lead, but Martin Short's portrayal of him I found more grating than anything else. Martin Short has a recurring problem in films be it Clifford, Pure Luck and this one in that his delivery just doesn't translate all that well to the movies he's in despite him being a proven funny comedian. Hubie comes off throughout the movie as whiny, obsessive, or emotionally needy and I just didn't find him all that charming.

The animation is at least nice, in parts anyway. The characters are expressive and there's energy to the animation, but there's also some sloppiness that's rather noticeable no doubt due to the production troubles. There are many sequences with odd color coding, static characters in either the foreground or background that give blank stares into space, and even cases of recycling of animation. The movie feels like a hatchet job with a lack of flow and connective tissue between scenes as we jump and skip between sections like a needle hitting record skips. It has the feeling of something where parts were removed while others were being inserted. There's a framework for a serviceable story in place, but the parts used to build it are so haphazardly assembled it lacks emotional impact.

The Pebble and the Penguin is the kind of movie that was made for "too many cooks". It has the feeling of something that was hampered by executive mandate and was put together with the mentality of "just finish it already". Maybe if Warner Bros. Had allowed it to be finished first instead of prioritizing Thumbelina maybe it would've been a better product, but as is: It's a mess of a movie that doesn't know how to assemble all the elements it has into a cohesive whole.

By the mid 1990s, the career of animator-director Don Bluth had seemed to drop to its all-time low. Before, Bluth had made a series of popular animated films, many which remain beloved today such as "The Land Before Time" (1988), "The Secret of NIMH" (1982), and "An American Tail" (1986). But beginning with "Thumbelina" in 1994, his films seemed to decrease more and more in quality and popularity and one of the many unfortunate entries is 1995's box office bomb "The Pebble and the Penguin", a film that didn't attract audience members beyond parents and children under the age of seven. Frankly, the latter are the only audience members I can comprehend taking enjoyment out of this rather bland animated feature.

The story is absurd. The film stars a poorly-drawn, stammering, and chubby penguin named Hubie (voiced by Martin Short) who falls in love with a female penguin with a surprisingly healthy flower on her head (voice by Annie Golden). SORT OF like in real life, penguins present their bride-to-bes with a pebble as a substitute for a ring. But when Hubie is swept away by the current, he teams up with a lone rockhopper (James Belushi) with a dream of flying and they race against time to return to Antarctica before it's too late. The reasons why they could be too late is one of many underdeveloped elements of this weak story that would still be weak even if they were there.

It becomes very clear very early on why this animated children's musical does not and will not work for anybody older than say six or seven years of age. It just does not have any of the qualities that are required for a good animated feature. Number one, the film looks bad on account of a very poor drawing style. The animation in this film is very cartoony (even as far as animated films go); it's dark, gloomy, there is no vibrancy in the colors, and on top of that, the design of the film and the elements in it are universally droll and laughable. Take for instance, the penguins who star in the film. With only a few background exceptions, every single penguin looks absolutely nothing at all like a bird. Hubie, for example, looks absurdly ridiculous with wide cheeks, a stubby beak, big eyes, and that preposterous hat that he wears wherever he goes. Combined with his hand-like "flippers" he looks like Chris Farley in a penguin suit. Result: he's an ugly, poorly-drawn cartoon character. But the most absurd-looking and absurdly-designed character is the evil penguin, Drake, who frankly looks nothing at all like a penguin. He's a muscle-man wearing a penguin mask. He's got a chest broader than that of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and teeth larger than the teeth of the leopard seals and killer whales that serve as the film's predators. Basically, he's a two-dimensional, recycled villain. He lives in a cave shaped like a skull, he wears a cape, laughs a lot, and gets mad when people laugh with him. Result: who cares? And what's also bad, and maybe worse, is that this is an animated musical and there's not a single noteworthy or memorable song to found anywhere within its running time. The opening hymn was harmless—not memorable, but harmless. But after that, the songs became duller and duller and there was one in particular that had me grimacing all the way through. It's the moment that viewers press the fast-forward button for whenever it comes up.

I felt "The Pebble and the Penguin" was lame all around save for the very few moments when Hubie and the rockhopper penguin Rocko are placed in peril at the jaws of leopard seals and killer whales, who were thankfully, given no dialogue and treated as animals instead of cartoon characters. But in a way, for this reason, I cannot wholeheartedly recommend this movie to children. This is the reason. The film displays killer whales are the natural predator of the penguins. My concern is that children familiar with "Free Willy" (1993) may be offended or downhearted by seeing their favorite denizen of the sea portrayed as a bloodthirsty carnivore. The leopard seal was a better antagonist and was more funny seeing as how his jaws opened wider than a rattlesnake's and how he appeared to smile while growling. But the point really is, these moments with the predators—and there are only a few—are the only interesting moments. And they're not enormously interesting, mind you.

Bottom line, I cannot recommend this to anybody below the age of seven. My advice: if you have children around that page, rent it for them. They might enjoy it.

I don't know why the rating is so low. This is a beautiful movie, that only has a couple of flaws. It is not as good as An American tail and Land Before time, but way better than Rock A Doodle Doo and Troll in Central Park . I really don't understand the criticism that it is unimaginative, with Rocko flying. Hello? Elephants can't fly, and look what Disney did with Dumbo! The songs and musical score are lovely, especially Now and Forever and Sometimes I wonder. The only song I didn't like was Good Ship Misery, because it was badly sung. The animation generally was good too, the highlight being the killer whales scene. True there were a lot of colour changes and some animation errors(Good Ship Misery), especially in Drake's song. And unlike some people I thought Marina and Hubie's romance is very sweet. The worst character animation was that of Drake. Nobody would draw a penguin like that. The voice overs were what made the movie, and they WEREN'T racist. Shani Wallis is lovely as the narrator, accompanying the beautifully-animated Antarctica-landscape beginning, certainly an improvement on the narration in Rock a Doodle Doo. Martin Short portrays Hubie's nervousness with such conviction, and James Belushi steals the show with a hilarious characterisation of Rocko. Annie Golden made me cry with her beautiful singing voice, her rendition of Sometimes I Wonder is heart-rending and Marina is such a cute and beautiful penguin, and Tim Curry voiced Drake beautifully, even if he got a tad annoying. In fact, Don't Make Me Laugh is special to me because that is the best I have ever heard Tim Curry sing since Blue Money.And by the way, Curry is the most experienced singer on the soundtrack, so I was shocked by the comment that compared the singing to howling monkeys. Barry Manilow and Sheena Easten's duet at the end was sublime too. All in all a beautiful and imaginative movie, if a little on the short side. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Symbol of the creative -and financial- problems of Don Bluth's team between "All Dogs Go To Heaven" until "Anastasia", this animated movie benefits impeccable score and songs and good animation, for a very weak plot.

Now I'm a huge Don Bluth fan, so it's no wonder I love all of his films to death, with the exception of Rock-A-Doodle-Doo, which had potential but dived like a nailed duck than sang like a rooster.

Back on topic, I felt that "Penguin" is a vastly underrated film. The basic story is that Hubie, our shy, lovestruck hero, must make his way back to his love Marina after being left for dead by the jealous Drake, whose also got his eye on Marina. Accompanied by the strong and hyper-active Rocko, Hubie braves the waters to make the 3000 mile journey and give her his unique "engagement pebble" before his love is banished forever.

The adventure itself is everything I want in this type of movie: Action. Hubie and Rocko's flights from the numerous seals and whales who see our fair duo as an appetizer are always enough to hold my attention, because it was fast. And the faster and livelier the animation, the better for me.

But of course, the slower moments made me like this movie also. In these scenes, we see the birds' true personality emerge. Hubie is this shy and timid thing in the beginning...Quite lame actually (Who calls anyone a "big bully" anymore?) And in the end, he's brave and not afraid to speak his mind. In fact, he learns to fight and defend himself, taught by the tough-guy Rocko, who begins showing compassion and friendship for Hubie as the movie goes on. He also shares his dream with the penguin: To be the first penguin to fly, a cute little personality quirk to this diamond in the rough.

It has your typical Bluth animation: Fluid, bright, lively, and Disney-like, and that's the main thing I've come to love from animation produced during the bygone era. Just plain beautiful in all aspects.

The songs are pretty charming... once they wear on you. After all, this is a movie intended more so for 7,8,9,10 year olds, so these songs aren't "Lion King" material. But I've come to find something I like about each. For instance, Hubie's jokes in "Looks Like I Got Me a Friend" are lame... but I've come to love that about the cute lil' penguin!! All songs are acceptable, excluding "Misery." Waaaay too childish. But the score was absolutely breathtaking.

To me, this movie only had one setback: Drake, the aforementioned villain. He's not the most likable villain at all and only held my attention with one or two threats, and a few lines from his song "Don't Make Me Laugh." He's more annoying than anything else, and made me all the more happier Hubie kicked his white-and-black behind.

In conclusion, "Penguin" has been adored by me since the first time I laid eyes on these quirky birds. Given this is a children's movie really makes me appreciate it even more. The music, main characters, action scenes and character development of Rocko and Hubie were perfect. The villain and a few songs were the only drawback to a wonderful movie. Don Bluth is one of the best, independent animators of the 80s-90s and he has kept his rep very well.