Happy Feet

Happy Feet, directed by the man who gave us both Babe: Pig in the City and Mad Max, is just the kind of feel-good animated film that works on a few different levels; it'll make you laugh, it'll make you cry, and it'll inevitably, unquestionably, make you tap your toes or bounce your leg, right there in the theater. It's charming and exquisitely detailed, and it succeeds where it really counts: It makes you really feel for the lovable lead penguin, Mumble (voiced by Elijah Wood).

Mumble is an unfortunate penguin, you see, because was born with no singing ability, and in his penguin tribe one attracts a mate through the use of song. The poor flightless bird can only look on helplessly as his fellow hatchlings croon their little hearts out. Amazingly, though, Mumble can tap dance, a big no-no in the penguin community. Soon, with no heart song to guide him, Mumble isn't permitted to graduate from school, to the chagrin of his Elvis-like dad (Hugh Jackman) and his songbird-like mom (Nicole Kidman).

Mumble heart belongs to the best singer in his age group, Gloria (Brittany Murphy), but without the gift of song he can't hope to woo her. Worse, with the penguins' food supply running out, some of the other birds begin to blame Mumble's foot-tapping, that somehow he is angering the great god Guin. The sad-sack penguin is then drummed out of the penguin corps, shunned for his lack of song and strength of feet, and he runs into another penguin colony, one that uses pebbles to woo their females instead of song, and makes new friends - a Latino-sounding quartet that's high on life, full of zest and pizazz and charisma, everything that Mumble's old group isn't.

Then Mumble hears from some predator birds of mysterious "aliens" who probe and attach tags to their victims. Mumble thinks these aliens might have something to do with the lack of fishies for everyone to munch on, so he and his new pals head off on a Quest to find these aliens and ask them to stop stealing all the fish.

Some of the scenes are beautifully imagined, including attacks by sea lions (quite harrowing, actually, until its denouement), vultures, and killer whales, not to mention every time Mumble and/or his posse leap off a cliff and slide down the side like avian sleds. Or through ice tunnels. Or through the water itself, shooting like streaming jetliners with mile-long contrails. Gorgeous animation.

At its heart, the movie is about how it's okay to Be Different. It's about how older folks sometimes hold prejudices that are as illogical as they are insulting, and how they'll often pass along those prejudices to their children, sometimes through direct actions and sometimes by dint of their inaction when wrongs are being perpetuated.

Robin Williams takes on four roles in this movie: the Narrator (where he's excellent and not at all hammy), Ramon and Cletus (two of the feisty new penguins), and Lovelace, a self-professed penguin guru to whom penguins go to have their problems solved. On the one hand, Williams is delightful doing what he does best, improvising rapid-fire comic patter to get laughs; on the other hand, he's Robin Williams, and although there are differences between his voice characterizations, they all bear a strong resemblance to one another. As with most animated films, the movie is well-cast; Jackman is particular has an appealing Southern drawl (ironically, he and Kidman are Aussies playing penguins with southern accents).

In the wake of the phenomenal, surprise success of March of the Penguins, Happy Feet makes your heart soar from start to finish. It'll be very difficult not to shed a tear at the mistreatment of Mumble by his peers and his elders, and it'll be near impossible to thoroughly enjoy this dazzling animated offering.

Animated comedies have become what Mike Tyson was to the boxing scene in the 1980's: a safe bet. This begs an upsurge in quality for the market and the otherwise forgettable family fluff films have begun to interweave deeper, more salient issues in their stories. Political messages about environmental problems was perhaps the last thing I expected to find rotating around in a happy, tappy romp like 'Happy Feet' but the fact is they are there, and they are superbly handled, as is much of the film.

Advertising the film as a propaganda vehicle would have been grossly unwise, which is why the simple template story rings true to most people. All that has been put forward in trailers and synopses is the lonely journey of the Emperor Penguin Mumble (Elijah Wood), who is an outcast owing to his poor singing voice and tapalicious feet. The rest of the tight-knit, conformist community all rely on special heartsongs to appeal to mates, and not being able to carry a tune is a fatal misstep for Mumble. When he finally finds friends in Ramon's (Robin Williams) foreign group of Adelie penguins, it becomes clear that there are more things threatening the penguin society on Antarctica – the most prominent of which being human overfishing.

One third into 'Happy Feet', I found myself drifting ever so slightly into indifference as the sprawling surge of R'n'B on the ice wore off. The emperor penguins all sing tunes you have heard before and it is not until Mumble encounters the eccentric party group of Adelies that Happy Feet receives a well-deserved kickstart and starts tapping into good fun. Thankfully, and admirably, it manages to avoid pratfalls, slapstick, pee- and fart jokes and instead the finely-tuned humour rests on the wealth of meticulous animation, juxtaposition, absurdist situations and snaptastic one-liners from Ramon's crew as they take Mumble in and introduce him to their kooky, fun-loving society and social guru, "Lovelace". This is seen in stark contrast from the emperor penguins' community on the humour side of the tapestry, and the funniest gag in the latter is Kidman returning from the long fishing journey and telling her baby Mumble lovingly that she "has got something for him", and proceeds to vomit into his mouth. Priceless.

Happy Feet is an ambitious animated comedy. It's ambitious in its scope; there are epic aerial shots of the vast icy glacier, even from outer spaces, it treats salient issues like the effects of overfishing, it takes well-deserved jabs at organized religion, in which the elder emperor penguins represent the archaic values and traditions that they mindlessly adhere to. It features a star-studded cast, it sees seamless intercutting of live action footage and stars (I spotted an uncredited Ewan McGregor cameo, look out), and it is dedicated to Steve Irwin. Certainly 'Happy Feet' carries all of its ambitions quite well, some becoming accolades like the effective punch at conformity in which all the penguins literally look identical except for the fuzzy, fluffy Mumble, while others fall flat thanks to its shortcoming cast.

It should only be so hard to provide voicework for an animated character, and Elijah Wood does it effortlessly as the fumbling, bumbling toddler-like misfit Mumble, who even looks like him with bright baby blue eyes. Nicole Kidman stars as Mumble's mother, with a ridiculously over-the-top voice, and she tips over into overacting at a few points. In the beginning we are given the well-condensed introductory story of how she met Mumble's father Memphis (Hugh Jackman) with a heartfelt heartsong, and she gets to reprise her romantic duet singing of Moulin Rouge opposite fellow Aussie. All of the aforementioned actors, as well as Robin Williams and Hugo Weaving, perform well in their respective supporting roles – all except the unforgivably redundant Brittany Murhpy as Mumble's perpetual love-interest (who is a bad singer to boot), a plain annoying and unlikeable character backed by an equally unlikable actress.

Owing to its mindblowing animation (which has been absolutely honed in the past few years) and treatment of salient issues, 'Happy Feet' could not have been made five or even four years ago. The former is translated into unspeakably beautiful sequences of underwater chases and ice slides while the latter manifests itself in apt environmental warnings. Although I was mostly entertained, there were a few too many purposely "aww" moments crammed in and certainly it does not quite dethrone the majestic 'Ice Age' (2002) as the best sub-zero comedy ever made. There, I've now said so little in so many words.

7 out of 10

This is the kind of movie that conceals deeper depths and vividly exhilarating emotion overall.

First interpretation: "Ok, it's a movie about a penguin that dances and has trouble finding a mate. How profound can this movie be?" Then the movie revealed themes I never thought they would accomplish such as Religious fanaticism and Human's destruction of the environment.

It reminded me of 6th Sense because it was so twisted yet taught a very important moral lesson.

Robin Williams is the highlight of the movie, his 2 characters are both well portrayed and well voiced.

Highly recommended. It made me want to go out and save the penguins.

If you just thought this film was about dancing penguins, you're wrong. This film is a great family film that has complex messages. It is in musical form.

When it begins we learn what happened to Mumble, that makes him tap dance and not sing. His father is ashamed of him, but his mother is not. As he grows, he looks different from the other penguins. Later, he mets Spanish - like penguins that are a hight light to the film because they add to the humor. As the story goes on, we learn there are less fish and the water is filled with garbage. Because of us humans, penguins are in danger.

The characters are all great and the animation is wonderful and very detailed. It is funny and it even has messages. It teaches us to accept who we are. It also tells us that the environment is in danger, but in a fun and entertaining way. This film beats Monster House and Cars as the best animated film of the year.

Overall, I enjoyed this movie and don't regret having gone to see it. I feel like the animators, actors doing voices and Savion Glover (hope I spelled that right!) wasted some of their efforts on an inferior-quality script.

I admire the environmental theme, but felt like it was being shoved down our throats .. with no real solutions suggested, either. Some portions of the script were not explained well .. like how on earth Mumbles got back from the zoo to his family. Okay .. and why can't Mumble molt correctly, and why does his face look different from all of the other adult penguins? That's never explained, either.

I laughed and smiled my way through the first half of the movie, and it felt like the second half dragged on endlessly and made little sense. :-< I was expecting to love this movie a lot more than I did.