Not perfect, but entertaining funny and lots of depth

Rating: 6/10 (18 August 2014)

I watched this for the first time not too long ago as double feature with the Academy Award winning documentary "March of the Penguins". While the Academy Award winner for Best Animated Feature "Happy Feet" was certainly the weaker of the two, it still has its pros. I will come to that later. Lets continue with an interesting snippet that "Happy Feet" is from the director and writer of the Mad Max movies starring Mel Gibson, although he got help from two lesser known actors as co-directors.
The film starts right away in a funny manner with Mumble dancing in the egg and goes on by touching all family relationships of the central character, such as his mother, father, girlfriend, but also his interactions with penguin friends and humans. I especially liked the way humans are included. Always a difficult approach for animated movies, but they succeeded well here, much better than in Wall-E for example. The change from animation to live action was truly well done and I particularly liked the way when the perception is switched and we see and hear the transformation in speech, the way the humans perceive Mumble. This is one of the factors that makes the scene in the zoo truly sad. Add to that the illusions he has about his family of course.
The central character, color-wise, looks like a young penguin from start to finish. This not only helps to distinguish him from the many other penguins in the film, but also adds lots of cuteness. One of my favorite scenes early on is when we see Mumble in music lessons (with a truly funny teacher) and all the other kids are laughing. All the others? No. His love interest is not, which is quite a major point implying the direction into which this film develops. The songs and choice of music is not exactly my cup of tea, but that's just personal perception and still I believe they fitted the scenes nicely most of the time.
One scene that did not work too well in my opinion was the one where Mumble has the talented mini penguin sing for his girlfriend. The way she reacts angrily just feels over the top and not credible to the extent that you start to wonder if she really is the right girl for him. This mini penguin and his friends provide decent comic relief and keep the film from getting too serious for an animated movie. One of these more serious parts is Mumble's relationship to his dad. There's several scenes that focus on their interactions, just like near the end where his mother tells him to dance with his father (had to think of Luther Vandross) and also earlier when Mumble looks at his father thinking he is going to step up for him, but dad does the exact opposite. You could also add the egg-falling-down scene very early in the movie, although I did not perceive it as that significant as it tried to be.
Aside from the mini-penguins, the film truly has quite a bit serious tension. Another almost tragic scene is when Mumble pushes away and insults his girl to protect her. As much as Mumble stood out thanks to his looks, I had occasionally difficulties to define who is who for the other penguins, especially when it came to his girl and mother, but that may work better on rewatch. Maybe it was just me. Also, this film makes you wonder what the makers' position towards religion and church exactly is. On several occasions you could find criticism which wasn't even subtle: the great deity, the penguin pope... Another funny thing, maybe the funniest, was a Dalai Lama penguin which accompanies the bunch in order to be freed from a noose around his head.
This film is an exception to most animated movies as it has no real one main antagonist. Maybe the closest to it would be the penguin pope, but he doesn't really have that many scenes as most of the action takes place outside the village, obviously after Mumble's ban. So, there's many smaller enemies like leopard seals and skuas and humans of course too. Before I finish the review, I would like to add to my comment that the mini penguins are mostly there for comic relief that they also offer more than that. My favorite scene probably involving them was when they ask Mumble to come with them as they accept him despite him being different in opposition to the people in his village and even his family. All in all, it's a decent movie with a good message at the end and certainly worth a watch, especially if you like animated films.