the jokes on chocolate bar penguins are funnier

Rating: 2/10 (14 February 2009)

Mumble grows up with an unhealthy singing voice and a tendency to tap whenever he is happy which makes him an outcast in the penguin community.
With CGI so easy to maintain these days it is all about the story for animations. Wall-E is perhaps the finest made animation of the last 10 years with barely any faults. It has a great music score, is artistically handled and the preaching issues of human's relaxed attitude towards destroying the planet are finely driven. The plot is not only entertaining for the family but relative, a complete contrast to this picture.
The appeal of this Warner Brothers 2006 Oscar winner is quite strong. Lovable looking characters, some catchy music and a potential to convey an important message about the climate, but it fails to achieve any of these.
Targeting the family should be relatively simple for a picture that has singing penguins and Robin Williams in but no, the encoded humour is tried and tested slapstick and horrible singing that feels cruel rather than funny. Robin Williams' Ramon and Lovelace are excellent and the only bright spark of the entire hour and forty minutes.
Starting in outer space (why?) we zoom down to the arctic where penguins are singing and dancing and all love each other and are doing fine. Then along comes Mumble, the penguin who can't sing who (because of his unnaturalness) is accused of driving away all the fish. Cue cheesy storyline that conforms to the typical unlikely hero has a problem to overcome and everyone hates him apart from the popular female and he desperately wants to make it right etc. Occasionally you can have a film that conforms to formulaic plot planning that still works if a couple of twists are thrown in or there is a decent score.
No such luck with Happy Feet as everything is obvious, misjudged or painfully unbelievable in its context.
The score would be appealing if they weren't rip offs of other songs e.g. one is Wild Wild West with penguins or if they were not so disgraceful for a family audience as lyrics such as "You turn me on" and "I'll make love to you all through the night" appear. OK classic songs, but appropriate? The message of animal cruelty could have been constructed in a more meaningful manner as the film tries to go from entertainer to good nature preacher. Happy Feet goes to show that with an obvious story and terrible characters, that animation only works if there is meaning and feeling. Looking for a fun family film that's funny and has meaning? No one does animation quite like Pixar.