Unbelievably Overrated

Rating: 5/10 (6 June 2007)

"Happy Feet" is a lively, song-filled, and visually stunning story of a group of penguins. It's also incredibly overrated, long-winded, lengthy, bizarre, and it has no real heart.
The film starts off well enough, and the first thirty minutes would have tempted me to give it an 8 or 9 out of ten. The opening scenes are fun and lively, filled with good tunes and an interesting storyline. Basically, "Happy Feet" is the story of Mumbles, a penguin who just doesn't belong in his community. While the other penguins can sing amazingly well at an early age, Mumbles has a terrible voice and can only tap his feet. In the beginning, his voice and the voices of his friends all sounded very cute to me, and the penguins themselves were as cute as can be. Unfortunately, when Mumbles grows up, the film goes downhill. Elijah Wood does a terrible job at voicing Mumbles, and his speeches and dialogues seem to drag on forever. As the story progresses, he first falls for Gloria, but leaves his penguin community to fin a place where he belongs. This is the start of the long and dragged-out plot of the film, which I found completely dull and strange.
Eventually, as always, the animated penguins come in contact with humans. This is the low point of the film because the humans are not animated, which is very creepy, and the director tries to bring in an environmental spin on the story.
Overall, the film is too long and the plot stops being interesting the second Mumbles and his friends become adults. The voice acting is great for the most part, but I found Robin Williams's different voicings kind of racist and stereotypical, and Elijah Wood does an awful job as the leading male. Still, the song and dance numbers are very fun and I enjoyed the animation for the most part.
5/10