Happy Feet = Brainwashing Propaganda

Rating: 1/10 (26 November 2006)

There will be spoilers, however, I highly recommend you not waste your money on this atrocity anyway, so please read on.
Let me preface this rant with the fact that I am neither religious nor political. I could care less that liberal Hollywood treats their movies as agenda pushing media because I like a good story. The Constant Gardener really played with your sensibilities about what is happening in African countries and whatnot and how America is the cause, etc. However, the film was about love and the union between two people, and how one tries to honor the other after death. The political undertones were second fiddle to the touching story and beautiful construction, making it my favorite film of last year. Unfortunately not all films can use a strong story to thinly veil an underlying theme or moral, sometimes they must wear their politics on their sleeves. Once again I have no qualms with this as I'll see the trailer and decide not to bother. It is a despicable thing that has been done with the new animated children's film Happy Feet. Not only do they advertise it as an ugly-duckling type tale of redemption, but also completely target it to children. I equate this travesty of cinema to Camel Joe pitching smokes to kids; it is truly appalling.
Through the first 45 minutes or so I was with this movie. I enjoyed the against all odds yarn, the animation was nice, the music fun and entertaining (not to mention the Moulin Rouge- like use of it to advance the story), and the reigned in absurdity of Robin Williams was hilarious. Sadly, the film took a huge dive to garbage very quickly after. All of a sudden the emperor penguins become an evil cultish Catholic Church banishing their young "heretic" whose blasphemy has caused a shortage of sustenance. His evil ways have made their God take away their fish and livelihood and he must be excommunicated. I should have seen signs of this when, after deftly allowing us to tell our protagonist apart from the rest by his blue eyes, they grew the penguins up and made his fur stick out completely from the crowd; Mumbles the penguin was a disgrace, and an outsider who decides to use science and fact to prove his superiority over the simple creationists he was raised with. Now I hate the Catholic Church just as much as the next disgruntled Catholic, but come on here. Do little children need to be force-fed an anti-parable about the evils of the Right?
The liberals behind this film don't stop at the allegory between penguins and humanity, however, no, they take it even further. Once Mumbles goes on his mission to prove humans are taking the fish and not God, he is eventually captured. Upon awakening, he finds, to his dismay, that he is in a zoo, surrounded by brainwashed penguinsslaves to fish feeding time and multitudes of human watchers that ignore his cries for help for his species back home. My gag-reflex was tested when the filmmakers cut sharply from Mumbles' face to the cityscape where the zoo resides, to Earth, and then to space. Oh for shame, what are we doing to these penguins? Only when a little girl sees his tap-dancing do the humans "awaken" to the atrocities they are committing with nature and free him to go search for more penguins. Now we have a melding of real live actors with the animation, people traveling to Antarctica to see these wondrous tap-dancing creatures. After a crisis of faith is averted, the humans are tickled by the showmanship of these animals and start dancing themselves. What's worse are the cut scenes shown next of people in board rooms discussing how humanity is destroying this creature's ecosystem and what can we do to stop it? This is a children's film and the creators should be ashamed of themselves.
When did America resort to brainwashing its youth and turning a prophet? Maybe it would be accurate to say a long time ago. I understand if you were to bill this as Green Peace sponsored, liberal approved rhetoric and allowed the parents the choice on whether to subject their children to it. Instead we are given the posters and trailers of a cute little penguin tap-dancing while trying to find his heart song. Now all the kids want to go and experience the fun. Well congratulations to the filmmakers, it seems to have worked making Happy Feet the number one movie in America for two weeks. Next time they start picketing a meat factory for herding cattle to their deaths they can take a look in the mirror and see a person who herded young minds into an ambush of political cajoling. Why let our youth grow old and become educated to the issues when we can get them now in elementary school? Have them come home crying, "are we really killing the penguins Mommy?" (Yes there were many crying kids in my IMAX screening) and learn that they better vote Democrat when they reach voting age because if not then the furry creatures we pay to see at zoos will lose their homes. Happy Feet is a disgrace to cinema and a guerilla tactic by liberal supporters. What kind of world do we live in when our children aren't even safe to watch a cartoon about dancing penguins?