Happy Feet
Movie Review
"Happy Feet"
Review by Eric D. Snider
Grade: B
Rating: PG
Released: Friday, November 17, 2006
Directed by:
Cast:
Australians! Is there anything they can't do? "Happy Feet" has an Australian director and writers, several Aussie cast members, and a peppy, upbeat, wacky sensibility that is distinctive of comedies from Down Under. It's about penguins who sing, and one penguin who dances. KOOKY!
This surreal, toe-tappin' animated musical combines "March of the Penguins" zoological trivia (the males care for the eggs!) with "Moulin Rouge"-style integration of pop songs (they sing while they're doing it!). Memphis (voice of Hugh Jackman) and Norma Jean (Nicole Kidman) are an emperor penguin couple who, like most of their kind, express themselves through song. Not original Broadway-style tunes, but songs you've heard before, like Prince's "Kiss" and Elvis' "Heartbreak Hotel." Their voices are beautiful, and they harmonize like they were made for each other.
Along comes their adorable hatchling, Mumble (voiced in childhood by Elizabeth Daily and in adolescence by Elijah Wood), who can't carry a tune to save his life. While the other children are learning to find their "heart songs," their true inner singing voices, Mumble can only squawk out an earnest but ugly honk.
Even more embarrassing: Mumble is an extraordinarily good tap-dancer, something none of his fellow 'guins are good at, nor even approve of it. "A pagan display!" is what one of the elders calls it. If being unable to sing weren't enough to make him a misfit, being a feathered version of Savion Glover does the trick.
Mumble leaves his colony, with his father embarrassed (and feeling guilty for dropping the egg while Mumble was incubating) and his mother still defending him. After some wandering, Mumble finds a place where the penguins are smaller than him and speak, inexplicably, with Hispanic accents. The five pals he runs into first (led by Robin Williams, doing that flamboyant Puerto Rican thing he does) find his dancing delightful and want him to teach them how it's done.
The plot, in a screenplay written by Warren Coleman, John Collee, Judy Morris and George Miller (who's also the director), is admirably weird and unpredictable, taking Mumble on a journey back to his own colony, into the world of humans, and back to Antarctica again. The film's eventual "just be yourself" message is pretty standard for a kiddie flick, but everything else about it surprisingly fresh.
Miller previously produced both "Babe" movies (and directed the second) and directed the "Mad Max" films. So talking animals and hero's journeys, he's familiar with. The attention to detail in the animation is outstanding, with the penguins cutely anthropomorphic and the song-and-dance numbers all impeccably choreographed. The jokes are loopy, the energy is infectious, the songs are hummable. In a year that's had a glut of animated films, it's nice to see one so different from the norm.
Grade: B
Rated PG, mild shenanigans
1 hr., 38 min.
Copyright © Eric D. Snider.
This work may not be transmitted via the Internet, nor reproduced in any other way, without written consent from Eric D. Snider.
This item has 19 comments
November 17, 2006 at 3:51 pm
It sounds a lot like the style Miller used in Babe: Pig in the City (which I loved). I have friends who said they didn't want to see that movie because it was for kids, then after they saw it they'd say they didn't like it because it was too dark and weird.
November 19, 2006 at 1:54 am
So I hear the movie has an environmental message. True?
November 19, 2006 at 9:51 am
Here's a review of this film that tackles not only the strange ecological message of this film, but apparently its strongly anti-religious bent as well (language warning): http://www.aintitcool.com/node/30704?semperex-search
November 20, 2006 at 10:33 am
Interesting (referring to the link Beedub provided. So the message is we should stop fishing because Penguins need to eat all the fish, not us? That's stranger to me than anything else the guy complained about.
November 20, 2006 at 6:35 pm
Weird that Eric didn't mention anything about that angle in his review.
November 23, 2006 at 9:57 pm
Weird that Eric didn't mention anything about that angle in his review.
For me to mention it, I'd have had to a) notice it and b) think it was worth mentioning.
The anti-religion thing is one interpretation, and I suppose there's evidence in the film to support it. But there's evidence in the film to support lots of other interpretations, too, including that it's a pro-gay movie and a liberal environmentalist screed.
I don't think the anti-religion thing holds much water. I took the things that the AICN guy says represent Religion as simply representing Tradition or Authority or Old-Fashionedness. He's welcome to his opinion, but it's certainly not a definitive statement on what the movie is definitely "saying."
Barring any announcements from the filmmakers regarding what the movie's message is, I'm content to leave it open to a variety of interpretations rather than pinning it down to one.
November 23, 2006 at 10:23 pm
I loved most of the movie, but it got really bad in the last fifteen or twenty minutes. Most of the movie was light, energetic and funny, but it took a turn for the worse at the end, with an abrupt tone change and the inclusion of (get this) live-action humans. I'm surprised you never mentioned that in your review, but hey, whatever.
November 24, 2006 at 9:26 pm
I went and saw it and left feeling grumpy feet.
I hated the last third of the movie... I totally felt like there was an unnecessary anti-religion theme, a bizarre "deus ex machina" ending that made no sense, and felt completely pummelled with "nature rocks, man sucks" hammer.
I enjoyed the singing and dancing... but loathed the ending. The theme of this movie was not "be true to yourself"... it was "don't fish or put animals in zoos."
I went hoping for a be true to yourself theme. Bummer.
November 25, 2006 at 1:48 am
This movie hit on pretty much every social theme out there; the environment, religion, gays, immigration, etc. The penguins bust out into Salt n' Pepa's "Let's talk about Sex" and Boyz II Men's "I'll make Love to You." There was one scene where Mumbles and Gloria are shown in three different sexual positions. Odd movie.
November 25, 2006 at 12:56 pm
Miller is no stranger to "messages." The beginning of the second Babe movie features a meat processing plant presented as a sort of holocaust extermination centre, and I almost stopped watching right there: is this a film, I wondered, or vegan propaganda. Fortunately, that's as far as the messaging went, and you could argue that dramatically, Babe needed to have a threat (bacon) hanging over him. I haven't seen HFeet, in part because of the reviews that highlighted the messaging, but maybe Miller could argue dramatic necessity there too?
November 25, 2006 at 2:30 pm
My wife went to see it, based partly on your review, and hated it. Especially the last part. Maybe there are a lot of messages that can be "read" out of the movie...but it would have been nice to know that the move did have "messages".
November 26, 2006 at 8:13 pm
Apparently there are followers of The Great 'Guin amongst us. The religion was not challenged - what was challenged was the authority of a superstitious leader who saw coincidence (decrease in fish, birth of freaky penguin) and declared causation. In fact, early in the movie we see The Great 'Guin in the sky during a festival of sorts, so the movie explicitly states that the religion itself is legitimate.
November 30, 2006 at 7:57 pm
If the movie had ended about half an hour earlier I would've liked it a lot better. Ecological messages? What the? I thought I was watching a misfit-finds-his-place movie about penguins...?
December 24, 2006 at 12:01 am
While I do very much believe there was a message regarding religion in this movie, I think it was about a specific type of interpretation of religion or application of it. To me, it attacked the closed-minded segment of the religious population that borders on being more superstitious than religious. Overall, the movie had its cute moments and some good music that was way over the heads of the age it targeted. Definitely is not something I plan to pay to see again at a theatre or on DVD. Actually would have liked a refund mid-way through it. Was surprised my son liked it.
April 8, 2007 at 10:28 pm
I think happy feet should of showed gloria and mumble togetther and with an egg.
April 28, 2007 at 2:47 pm
Yeah, but that would have gone against the message that "I don't need an egg to be happy" thing she went off on. Propogation of the species be damned, just be thrilled with yourself.
June 23, 2008 at 2:46 am
This movie looks pretty boss on Blu-Ray. My eight-year-old cousin had some trouble sitting through it; it was a bit drawn-out for a children's film.
April 10, 2009 at 9:02 pm
>>If the movie had ended about half an hour earlier I would've liked it a lot better.
It's funny, because those elements were also a large part of the rest of the film. End the film earlier or not, they'll still be there, and they'd still be a large part of the story. Doing so would just lead that plot thread hanging.
>>but maybe Miller could argue dramatic necessity there too?
Or, artistic integrity. Either works with me.
May 8, 2009 at 4:12 pm
I liked it, nice catchy remix of songs, plenty of humour for all ages. And the message of the film was fine, the comments however seem remiscent of how DR Manhatten in Watchmen found solace on Mars. Wake up people. It is one of the best films you have ever seen animation wise but you are letting your head rule your heart. This is a heart warming film, if you saw otherwise you were watching with your head. Watch without prejudice!!!!