I really wanted to love this...

Rating: 7/10 (23 April 2007)

...but alas, I'll have to settle for a "strong like". Now, granted, the idea of dancing penguins is a little "out there" to begin with, but then, so was a talking pig.
George Miller's BABE is one of my all-time favorite movies (and, yes, I feel a little weird admitting that). Not only was BABE cleverly, believably rendered, the message of tolerance grew very naturally from the story's characters. When I heard that Miller was the guiding hand behind HAPPY FEET, I was really expecting something special.
I almost got it, too. The animation is absolutely gorgeous here, with creatures that come to life on the screen more realistically than anything else this side of FINDING NEMO. Some of the sequences are just amazing, particularly a couple of underwater scenes. And while some might find the whole pop music thing a little odd, it worked for me much the same way the same kind of device worked in Baz Luhrman's MOULIN ROUGE.
Some have described the environmental message at the movie's climax as "heavy-handed". I wouldn't exactly put it that way, but I will say that I'd have a much easier time buying into HAPPY FEET's message if I cared more about the characters. And that's where this movie falls down.
There's more contrivance here than I really care for. The main character of Mumbles is set up as a penguin anti-hero without much explanation. He's just "different", and that is somehow intrinsically offensive to his community. He is fortunate to find helpful friends instead of becoming someone else's dinner. Of course.
He manages to defeat the conventions of his community, find his true love, and single-handedly (single-flipperedly?) draws the world's attention to his species' plight. Of course.
Granted, the sequence where Mumbles starts to go insane in captivity is fairly compelling, and in particular the scene where he finally captures the attention of a young girl is quite moving, but even these scenes would have meant so much more if we cared just a little bit more about the central character.
I think part of the problem here is that penguins are pretty cute, but there's only so much you can do to render individual birds as characters. They all look pretty much the same, and it gets hard to understand how they can all be so different after a while. The reliance on ethnic stereotypes for humor is a sure-fire hint that the writers were having a tough time moving the story along.
Worthwhile? Yes. Great? Not quite, I'm truly sorry to say.