Unnacceptable Adult Humor and a Poorly Hidden Pulpit

Rating: 3/10 (18 November 2006)

I saw the movie last night with a group of friends. We've been looking foreword to seeing it for several months, since the first trailers came out. The trailers looked funny; really funny. The dancing looked fun, and it had the potential to get songs stuck in your head in a Moulin Rouge-esquire manner. Finally, yesterday, the day came. It started out slow, but picked up alright. We begin with two penguins meeting each other for the first time when they sing to each other (something all penguins do to find their 'soul mate'). Soon thereafter the "elders," as we come to know them send the women away to fish, or something, while the men stay and incubate the eggs they're waiting to hatch. No doubt that's probably the way it happens in nature, the manner in which it's enforced by the elders is clearly making a statement about gender rolls.
In the midst of the incubation the father loses the egg. When the egg finally hatches, "Mumble" can't sing. He only tap dances, an "Abomination" as the elders describe it (Soddom and Ghemmora?). Coincidentally, there is also a shortage of fish during this time period. The elders decide that the fish shortage is punishment from the penguin god who is angry with Mumble's deviation from the norm. When Mumble refuses to "change," at the request of his father, he is cast out of the community.
Mumble sets out to find the source of the fish shortage. On the way he meets a crew of Latino penguins who take him to a Polygamist, penguin guru who's supposed to know everything because of his communion with the "great beings" (he has a plastic coke ring around his neck, slowly choking him). When he gets frustrated because he can't answer Mumbles questions, he instead retreats to his couch of "eternal pleasures" with his six penguin wives, presumably to have sex with them- which we can infer from his statement while leaving, "alright ladies, who's first?" Mumble, with a small posse of Latino penguins sets out to find the answer to his question. He eventually finds gigantic fishing boats, quite literally stealing all the fish. He follows them all the way to Florida where he is captured and put in a zoo. After months in the zoo, he goes crazy. Eventually, entertaining a small girl watching him, he starts dancing for her. His dancing attracts the attention of many zoo goers and literally within a matter of seconds, hundreds of people are crowded around all presumably calling the UN to tell them about the mistreatment of animals.
Somehow, (we really don't know much of what happened) Mumble ends up back home with a tracking device on. He somehow convinces everyone that dancing will bring back the fish. The elders protest and let out a very monk-like chant, while the rest of the penguins dance. Before long, a helicopter shows up and watches them all dance. Presumably, they call someone awfully important who makes all the evil fishing boats go away (in fact, we even get to see a nice little diagram of the fishing boats sailing away with arrows and everything).
The redeeming qualities of the film are that the dancing (although it's rare) is entertaining. The Latinos are extremely funny and witty, and the music is pretty fun- when it's appropriate.
Unfortunately the problems are much worse. The sexual innuendo is extremely thick. Even young children would probably pick it up (for example, at one point a penguin attempted to gain another penguins affection by singing "I'll Make Love to You" by Boys to Men). Then, on top of that, the movie primarily stood as a pulpit from which to speak and condemn. The bashing of the Christian church was extremely obvious and almost everything else just pushed environmental gung-hoedness that was seriously vile and even poorly stated.
So, in summary, if they would remake this movie with Mumble and the Latinos dancing, singing and making jokes- it would get 10 stars. But as is, children should NOT see it, and only adults willing to sift through the crap should even venture to try.