I'm confused. Here's why.

Rating: 6/10 (30 November 2006)

So I'm going to this movie called Happy Feet, and all I know about it is that its about a penguin that can tap dance and it features the voice talent of Robin Williams. Now how could anybody, with that given information, not have high hopes? Actually my hopes weren't all that high, but I still really wanted to see it.
As I left the theater, I had no choice but to scratch my head. Hard. What was it exactly that I just saw? On one hand, it was one of the most beautifully animated movies I've ever seen. On the other hand, what exactly was this movie about? I mean seriously, it had like nine themes it was trying to explore, each offering their own moral. One minute, we're talking about a penguin trying to find his voice(literally)in a communisitic society of antarctic poultry, then all of the sudden we're addressing environmental issues via a gang of albatross..es (albatrossi?). And if that wasn't enough, I felt a definite vibe of "screw you conservative religious people"..ism with the elder penguins kind of being jerks about everything.
Whatever the message was, it was about as subtle as the kool aid drink busting down a wall. *OH YEAHHHHHHHHHH IM THE MESSAGE!!!! BUT I Don't KNOW WHAT I AM!!!!!!* On a more serious note, I am just going to go ahead and say I did not like this movie. The plot was, on all accounts, not original at all. Not even a little bit. There were no villains, even though they introduced like three potential ones. I was really hoping for some original music, since no one makes musical cartoons anymore, but alas, I was stuck with an hour and a half music video for a half dozen r&b artists featuring penguins. There were about 5 too many dance/musical sequences, and they really didn't further the story. The way it went was that they'd have a sequence of music and dance, then the penguins would stop and take a breather, agree on a time and place for the next day, then go on with the story.
Robin Williams was funny. Way funnier than he was in Robots. If he wasn't in this movie, I would not have liked it at all.
After all that's said and done, I still like penguins, and I still like Robin Williams. This movie was not bad enough to ruin my taste for either of those things, but I'm waiting for the next Lion King.