Les Aventures de Youbi le pingouin

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

Let's face it, a lot of the reviews that 'The Pebble and the Penguin' has gotten here at IMDB are right that this movie's pretty bad, but trust me, there's worse ones than this. 'Rock-A-Doodle' without question is the worst of Don Bluth's movies (though I haven't seen it in years, I remember it being hideous), and although I haven't seen 'Thumbelina' all the way through, I know that it's worse than 'Pebble and the Penguin' too (the few minutes I saw of 'Thumbelina' were just too painful).

Anyhow, 'The Pebble and the Penguin' is a bit of a mess. As you may know, a shy penguin named Hubie is hell-bent on getting this strange green pebble to his lovebird, Marina. This could have been pretty good, but you can tell that they really rushed it. Then there's Drake, the most annoying villain... ever. In order to have a really good villain, he/she has to be somewhat likeable as well as sinister. But Drake's not likeable by a longshot. Tim Curry did voice him beautifully, though, so I've got to give that fact some credit.

The only great character is Rocko. Now HE has some personality going on. Hubie and Marina are okay, but Rocko's the one who steals the show.

One of the most glaring things about this movie is the animation. But I wouldn't entirely blame Don Bluth for this. I think he left this movie before it was finished, and who could blame him? There's a lot of odd coloring here, and the animation can vary from good to unbearable. And somehow the penguins in this movie just didn't look 'penguiny'. They just looked... wrong. Chilly Willy is more accurate to looking like a real penguin than any penguins here.

Don't expect much for great songs either. The only nice one is "Now and Forever" at the very beginning. The rest will give you a chance to go to the bathroom.

And I'm fed up with writers thinking the only way to defeat the antagonist is to beat the tar out of him. What kind of message is that?

I think if they spent some more time on this movie it wouldn't have been too bad. In fact, it could have been good. Still, it's better than some other late movies of Don Bluth's.

Genre: Penguins, animation.

Main characters: Hubie, Marina, Rocko and Drake the penguins. I feel for most of these characters and I like them very much indeed. I also like Drake, the baddie – but I do not feel for him.

Actors: Martin Short (Hubie), Shani Wallis (Narrator), Annie Golden (Marina), James Belushi (Rocko) and Tim Curry (Drake).

What happens: All of the Adelie penguins on a big iceberg are ready to mate, finding their pebbles to give to the penguin they love so they can mate. There is one rather clumsy and dreamy penguin called Hubie, who is in love with one particular penguin – but someone else loves her as well…

Message: It's not the gifts that you give your love that matter, but the giver.

My thoughts: I like this film rather a lot. I like the actors, the animation, the characters, the songs and the adventure of the story. The jokes are also amusing and I wouldn't be surprised if at least one person who didn't like this film liked at least one joke from it. The actors are well-picked and many people may like this film JUST because of them – as there are many famous ones (including James Belushi and Tim Curry). The animation is good, I especially like the backgrounds – sometimes it seems like you are going across the sea with the penguins! The characters are very lovable and have distinct personalities, not subtle though, which is one slight problem with this film. I especially like the characters of Hubie and Rocko, some may think otherwise. I also really like the songs, there is an amusing one, there are two romance ones and there is one "bad guy song" that we all have to have in a children's film! Well, we don't have to, but "Don't Make Me Laugh" is fun anyway, good singing from Tim Curry. The adventure of the film is very engaging and it keeps you focused on the film.

One thing I am not so keen about this film is that it's pretty average. Average acting – and the plot is quite average. Otherwise – I think this is a very good animated family film!

Recommended to: Families who would like to sit down to a cartoon film (maybe over some Haribo or a box of Popcorn), children who like penguins and cartoon and grown-ups who like penguins and cartoon films. Enjoy! :-)

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.

I had heard a lot of bad things about Don Bluth's movies from the 90's and sure Thumbelina, Rock-a-Doodle and Troll in Central Park are bad, but I found Pebble and the Penguin okay. Not at all near his masterpieces from the 80's which I simply love, but okay.

Tim Curry is the highlight of the movie, because it's Tim Curry, c'mon. He is the ultimate voice of a bad-guy and an amazing singer too! His song, "Don't Make Me Laugh", was bad-ass even though it sort of came out of nowhere.

I like the other characters as well. Martin Short did a good job as the introverted and shy Hubie and Annie Golden voiced Marina very well and sincerely and gave us a beautiful song. My least favourite was actually Rocko, he was meant to be this grumpy penguin, but I found that he was a constant asshole being passive-aggressive towards Hubie. But he is not totally one-dimensional, because he changes as the movie progresses and teaches Hubie some lessons too.

The animation had a lot to it. It changed a lot throughout the movie, but mostly it fit the scenes. The music was pretty good too and I don't get why many people say that there are too many songs. They were catchy and well sung. A certain improvement after Thumbelina and Troll.

Tim Curry's character's design was a little stupid, because a penguin on steroids is a little far-fetched to be honest. That was what he looked like, but he was entertaining and that is enough.

In general, an underrated film that will amuse the kids and maybe adults' eyes will get caught by certain aspects of it.