Unadulterated Crap!

Rating: 2/10 (1 March 2010)

I usually love a good animated movie, however, this stinker left our entire family cold. Animation allows the creator of the movie to plum emotions and subject matter that regular movies have a difficult time with. Miyazaki's "Spirited Away" is a great example. In "Happy Feet", however, we are expected to swallow some stupid notion that penguins social system is based on the ability to "sing" nicely, and when we are presented with a penguin who can't sing, but can only dance, we're expected feel some sort of sympathy for him. What? I do realize this is meant to be a metaphor for being "different" in our society, but of all the lame plot devices, this one is perhaps the worst.
Then, due to his ability to "dance" (actually do a penguin version of a shuffle) he is able to save the entire Antartica penguin population from overfishing by humans .... by his ability to dance while in captivity. Perhaps they should have had him be able to sing, and all the other penguins able to dance, because then he could have launched into a stirring rendition of "Somewhere ... Out There ... You're Eating All Our Fish!!" From what was perhaps the worst opening scene in any major animation production ever ... a musical number with no lead up, no explanation, and worst of all, no reason to care ... this movie just never makes it. The Mexican penguins, led by the voice acting of Robin Williams, are brilliant, but are the rare successful touch in this entire overly cute-for-cute's-sake production.
Take a pass, unless you really, really like so-so hip-hop covers of mediocre oldies.