Dancing and Singing on Thin Ice.

Rating: Null/10 (24 December 2006)

From those who brought us "Mad Max" and "Babe" comes "Happy Feet", one of the more interesting but underwhelming accomplishments of the past cinematic campaign of 2006. A young penguin who seems out of place due to his inability to sing and blend in with his contemporaries becomes an outcast in spite of his gift to dance in unique tap motions. This is the set-up for a journey that does not only affect the primary character, but ultimately all others around him as it soon becomes clear (too blatantly) that "Happy Feet" has a lot deeper message than other computer-generated animated features of the type. Uneven and manipulative production is second-to-none in terms of the elements of story-telling and technical film-making, but it tries to do too much with what it has going for it and ultimately nearly falls through very thin ice. Still a good film, but not what I expected when I bought my ticket. 4 stars out of 5.