Happy Feet (2006)

It was at least a different kind of a movie. They do look cute. They looked pretty funny dancing.

When a young penguin is born to a colony that communicates largely via song, I felt it’s pain. Not only because of the endless set piece numbers “Mumble” has to endure, but because he’s completely tone deaf. Indeed, as Cynthia Erivo might have said, “…he couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket”. He can, however, dance. Boy can he dance. That’s no use though as his love interest “Gloria” has the voice of an angel and the curmudgeonly (and Scottish) elder “Noah” blames their sudden paucity of fish on this youngster’s inability to croon. Now shunned by his own tribe, and thanks to an encounter with a lithe and fearsome leopard seal, he is befriended by some more Hispanic guins and off they set to seek the sagely advice of “Lovelace”. He claims that he was the victim of an alien abduction and that they gave him a very special necklace made of plastic. "Mumble" reckons the aliens might be the source of the food problem, so they travel the breadth of the snowy continent, facing peckish orca and huge great elephant seals as they go, before discovering just who these extra-terrestrials actually are. It’s at this point that the environmental message of the film kicks in, and though that’s all perfectly laudable and clear, the plot loses it’s way and becomes something of a mess. Sure, it’s encouraging us not to be judgmental of those different to ourselves, or the masses; and it’s also showcasing the enormous damage caused to the seas and oceans by trawling and litter contamination, but the story doesn’t really emphasise any of these connections using “Mumble”, especially at a conclusion which is really quite rushed. At times this is quite a lively affair, but the threads are too bare and the characterisations too lacklustre to sustain this as a feature length animation. Condensing it into half an hour with a couple of catchy tunes might have done better; focused more on it’s messages, and allowed for his Fred Astaire impersonations to have more impact. It’s original and fine, but sadly forgettable.