Postcards from the edge

Rating: Null/10 (5 December 2011)

How does director George Miller go from directing the ultra grim "Lorenzo's Oil" and the ultra violent "Mad Max" movies to directing an animated film about a tap-dancing penguin? Oh yeah, he once made a film about a talking pig. The universe makes sense again.
"Happy Feet" is an environmentally conscious animated children's film about a tap dancing penguin. It's first act is your typical "ugly duckling" story, in which a penguin called Mumble learns an assortment of oft-repeated values: "its okay to be different", "be who you are", "stay true to yourself", "never give up" etc.
But then the film switches gears and becomes a weird sex-obsessed (with subliminal penguin-on-penguin sex positions) tale in which highly aroused penguins preoccupy themselves with bedding, enticing, seducing, inseminating and arousing each another. During this portion of the film, the film's singing and dancing literally becomes re-directed sex energy. The penguins are largely self-centred, horny and stuck in their ways.
But then the film switches gears again and becomes a kind of multi-ethnic, pseudo-religious parable, in which a race of hard-lined, ultra parochial, super-traditionalist penguins begrudgingly replace their "holy singing" with "modern", "trendy", "liberal" and "vulgar dancing", taught to them by a gang of Latino midget penguins. Why do they replace their traditions? Because over-consumption and steadfast conservatism equals, apparently, extinction.
But then the film switches gears again and becomes a precursor to "Wall-E", Mumbles embarking on a quest to convince humans to stop over fishing, polluting and destroying the penguin's habitats. This portion of the film ends with a creepy sequence straight out of "2001: A Space Odyssey's" climax.
Then the film morphs yet again into a kind of unintentional parody of "March of the Penguins", a nature documentary which mercilessly anthromorphisized penguins. Ethology generally focuses on behaviour and not emotions in animals, but here was a film that went to creepy lengths to paint penguins as little human beings. People just like us. What "Happy Feet" does is have the penguins exploit this objectification. Miller has them become creatures of showbiz, entertainers and performers who take to the stage in order to sucker humans into feeling empathetic toward them. The film's humans, who don't care about the penguins unless they've been reduced to song-and-dance machines, performance puppets squeezed into a very rigid humanocentric framework, are the only "live action" things in the film (ie, not computer animated).
Beyond this the film has some good virtual camera work, some moments of wonder, some good jokes, some good ambiance and designs toward the second half (a ship, a whaling station, a zoo) and a few good set pieces. Comedian Robin Williams has fun as a fast talking Latino penguin.
8/10 – Cinema by committee or George Miller pet project? Incidentally, the past 2 decades have seen a huge rise in environmentally conscious "art" (mostly children's films), not a response to massive corresponding pollution increases during this same period, but a kind of unconscious abjuration or denial of responsibility. Worth one viewing.