A later comer's review: Wanted to love it, only liked it. (SPOILERS!)

Rating: 7/10 (16 October 2008)

Back in 2006 I actually had every intention of seeing it. I love animated movies, the preview seemed very funny, and the cast was chock full of some of my favorite actors (and some I loathe, but I digress). Regardless, I wanted to see it but never did a chance to get to the theater. It looked like it was going to be awesome and the imagery and graphics work was obviously phenomenal judging by the preview alone!
But I didn't see it.
But, now that my daughter has the DVD, she watches it...daily. It's her evening routine, and this is her film of choice at the moment.
So, I've seen the film now about 5 or 6 times straight thru, and probably another 10-12 times total, but in bits and pieces. Since 2 months ago.
In short, I've seen Happy Feet, whether I was a fan of the film or not, and I've seen it a couple dozen times (as a lot of parents have to endure when a toddler fixates on a film!). I figure I have justification for rendering an opinion on it now since I've viewed it so much in such a short time frame.
My first viewing yielded one opinion: I didn't like it that much. Gave it a preliminary 5/10. Was very disappointed. I guess I was expecting something different, something else. Either way, Viewing #1 had me bummed out. I genuinely expected "gold"...but got tin. (I eventually rated the film 7/10 after subsequent viewings, mainly due to noticing things I hadn't noticed before, and just "getting" the characters more.)
What struck me the worst at my first viewing was the jagged flow of the storyline. The story was very clear and obvious enough, but did not flow well. Some scenes came and went, leaving you with no emotional impact, or even a humorous impact. Just a literal sorta "Oh, OK...".
Baby Mumble was cute, and seemed genuinely imprecise and innocent. Older Mumble was a let down, as Elijah Wood seemed to be phoning it in as far as I could tell. Bummer, because he is great.
In that same vein, I really like Hugh Jackman and have always enjoyed Nicole Kidman's work. But their "impersonation" voices in this film annoy me to no end. It's not their fault....Elvis and Marilyn's speaking voices have always annoyed me too, so...
Hugo Weaving, however, was quite good as Noah the Elder!
Robin Williams. He was hilarious. And this is hardly surprising. Sure, people either love or hate Williams, but I for one love him. Ramon was his best voice in the film, as Lovelace seemed a little contrived. But still, it's just fun to listen to Robin Williams say just about anything.
Robin's band of cohorts were hilarious too!
But here's my issue with the cast: The movie is more of a "talent variety show" than it is a strong, cohesive, compelling storyline. A lot of the actors are VERY fun to listen to...but..everything as a whole just didn't ever gel into something....left you kinda flat, but at least I got quite a few laughs.
I also figured out quickly that the film was basically a musical. Cool, I thought, I like some musicals, so this should be entertaining. Sadly, while the music in the film is produced and performed at the utmost level of professional pop production...it's all Top 40 songs from the past few decades. Mind you, mostly great songs! But a musical, in my opinion, should be original music, or mostly original music. Penguins singing and dancing to well known pop songs is fodder for TV commercials, not a 100 minute film. As good as the songs were, the fact that the same gimmick was played again and again ("penguin performs old hit song") just got old - quick.
The extended "one-cut" animation sequences were VERY cool. Several minutes of the swimming for fish scene is one long, seamless sequence. I thought that was an original touch and was impressed. They played this out again, though shorter, with Mumble escaping the leopard seal, and with the 5 penguins and Mumble sliding down the mountain and into the water to discover the old crane. Great scenes. But the first one fishing would have done just fine, I think, and made you want to rewind it and see it again.
The live action footage didn't bother me. But even in the context of the film, treating the penguins behavior (dancing) as if it were happening in 100% actual reality was flawed. The penguins did and acted in non realistic ways, but the humans were somehow totally normal? OK, so let's say that was the whole point...but...not exploring (explaining) the reasoning for that left me with a big hole in the movie and totally took me "out" of it.
But it LOOKED fantastic! In 2006, this film clearly had raised the bar for photo-realistic outdoor CG scenery, lighting, and movement. Wow! The water particle fx were dead on and rival Finding Nemo, and the snow felt real and the feathers felt fluffy. Etc etc. GREAT work! (Only since been topped by Wall-E, IMO, in terms of photo-realistic imagery and realistic movements.)
But it just never came together like the amazing film I was hoping for when I saw the preview. Instead, it was a well executed pop culture exploitation extravaganza woven loosely into a decent story. Fun to watch, but not strikingly memorable. 7/10 for sure.