New Story, same look

Rating: 8/10 (3 January 2007)

In the last 3 years, there have been thousands of movies to grace the big screen, several of which, revolved around small, cute, furry animate animals. It makes sense, seeing as how little children have an almost instinctive love for small critters.This movie is really no different, and shows off just how much we can take before we realize: "I've seen this before...". But, before the review, some history: Shrek and Ice Age were basically the two first movies in the line of animated, child friendly movies. After their releases, other companies clued in to the new fad. Soon after that, computer animated movies had reached their peak, with Shrek 2 raking in over 900,000,000 dollars,setting records. Since summer 2004, the child-oriented animated movies have started to decline, some prime examples being: The Wild, Doogal, The Ant Bully, and several others. I as well have gotten a little tired of these movies, and, unfortunately, Happy Feet just didn't improve my opinions.
Happy feet revolves around the main penguin in the movie, Mumble (Elijah Woods) and his inability to sing. This of course causes problem, because, as everyone knows, if you can't sing, you can never get a mate (this explains a lot in my life). Mumbles colony considers him an outcast, and his father (Hugh Jackman) and his mother are forced to say goodbye to him as he goes to find the solution to the problem plaguing the colony, which he deems as aliens. Along the way, he finds several other penguins, but these ones, unlike his colony, are much shorter...and Spanish. Traveling with his new friends, he discovers what seems to be the answer to his problems. Now the only problem is getting anyone to believe him.
So, as I said, the movie could be better, but it could also be a lot worse. The upside of the movie consists of it's all-star cast, utilizing voice talents like Hugh Jackman (X-Men) Brittany Snow (John Tucker Must Die), Elijah Woods (Lord of the rings) and Robbin Williams (Aladdin). Another very noticeable improvement are the amazing graphics. Whilst watching this movie, I was dazzled by the level of realism they had attained, and I even felt a chill go down my spine during the scenes with the big open sea. One final positive comment I would like to make is in reference to the toe-tapping, rhythmic songs used through-out the movie. I found myself loving every song I heard, and laughing when the Spanish Penguins were singing. It is thanks to this movie, that I have decided my future career will be as a Spanish, Singing Penguin.
One more problem I have with the movie, is it's lack of responsibility. A movie that appeals to ridiculous amounts of children, bases itself on a child outcast....and pretty much fails to come up with a reasonable, logical solution. That really isn't the proper thing to be telling kids, is it? I do understand the difference between reality and fiction, but when a movie is marketed directly at children, I feel that there is a need to give them the proper impression, and saying that everything works itself out is not what I could place in that category.