Happy Feet

When people first saw the trailers for the 2006 animated junk-box musical, Happy Feet, which was all about a penguin who tap dances, the reactions were no doubt a little perplexed as it didn’t even look like a real movie. As bizarre as the premise is, the advertisement’s insistence on showing these CG penguins dance in an uncanny fashion against music of the time was something out of a bizarre fever dream, and more than anything left an impression on people that were more than likely ready to hate the movie. However, once the film came out, it surprisingly gave what was expected as well as something a little bit more.  At the frozen peak of the world, a penguin named Mumble (voiced by Elijah Wood) is born with a terrible singing voice, which is the way penguins’ mate in their society, and is only capable of expressing himself through tap dancing, which is viewed as irregular and something that the other penguins demand he will have to grow out of. His parents (voiced by Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman) appear supportive of him, but deep-down fear for his future as without the ability to sing, Mumble will always be an outcast and won’t find a proper mate. Now grown up, Mumble notices that the fish have vanished from the icy shores, and he believes it is the result of aliens (when in reality, it’s actually humans). Now banished from the herd after his ‘quirk’ is deemed too corrupting and unnatural, Mumble sets out to find answers along with his group of Mexican stereotypes, (the leader being voiced by Robbin Williams) and a crazy gospel preacher with a fishnet around his neck named Lovelace (also voiced by Robbin Williams) to fix the issue with his herd and hopefully, find closure with himself about who he is. Happy Feet feels like it has elements that could make it a deep interesting kid’s film (somehow) but as expected, it’s held back by more childish elements that really smother, in all honesty, some good will that the film could have built up. With a premise this bizarre and a tagline this ridiculous, it’s surprising that it has enough decent elements to keep it from being a completely pointless commercialized cash-grab, but it’s still not enough to make it an actual good movie.

The world that the film inhabits is very grand, overly dramatic, and especially nonsensical. The director, George Miller, who’s responsible for films like Babe and the Mad Max franchise, is known for creating environments that are overly extreme and hostile to the point of teetering on comical. It gives the world a unique atmosphere, stands out in a corny kid’s film (especially in one like this) and actually does a decent job given the Antarctic this very cultist reformist vibe which bizarrely doesn’t feel too out of place given the context of the story, but it’s never developed enough to get a grasp on why it functions like it does. The story set-up written by Miller along with John Collee, Judy Morris, and Warren Coleman is honestly not too bad despite the gimmicky concept and has the potential to lead to something more compelling (much like how other animated films can take ridiculous concepts and warp them to become more meaningful and watchable), but the film crams in too many plot points that either feel incredibly rushed and pointless or have no real resolution. This makes the movie feel overly long and drags out much longer than the plot can sustain. The ending is also very rushed and wraps up the problems established way too easily. Involving prejudices, a romance, pointless sidekicks and a tagged-on environmental message at the end, most of it goes nowhere or feels hastily put-together. There’s enough material here for two separate films and in comparison, the first act does feel more engaging, focused, and felt relevant to the characters, whereas the second act comes across like a last-minute injection to have some meaningful global commentary. It does at times focus on the interesting moments, creates a pace that allows for an aspect of maturity to sink in, and even ‘taps’ into a good idea but never lets it bloom. The tap dancing comes across as a quirky lure for the kids to fall for rather than a component for a good story, but ironically, it’s not as painfully gimmicky as it could’ve been, rather just forced. They try and fail desperately in attempting to find a way to make the dancing feel relevant which is very hard to do outside of a scene in the middle of the film where he does a duet with the love interest which is actually kind of nice (again, in the bizarre realm this film creates for itself). Outside of being a metaphor for a disability (which is actually a good concept with how this environment is set up and it isn’t fully ignored in that department) it just comes across as forced because of how its presented in the poster, in the trailers, and even in most of the movie.

The characters are more ethnicities than personalities. Each character has a distinct accent or goofy voice, but outside of that, nothing else is unique about them. Mumble himself is a basic character, but he’s more of the observer to the environment. Miller also has a habit of creating simple main characters in a world of madness and this is no exception. As previously stated, the idea of his dancing being a metaphor for having a disability is not that terribly done, as the only thing that prevents him from living a normal life with the rest of his kind is through social barriers created by a controlling system that deems how everyone must be and live, and the way around this hurdle isn’t through fixing himself, but rather others not objecting him for something he can’t control. It’s not a bad set-up, but it’s mostly thrown away after the halfway point and it doesn’t help that the rest of the cast’s unsubtle delivery keeps any sense of dignity out of this idea. The characters have funny ways of talking, but never anything funny to say. They talk extreme, but the writing is overly simple and doesn’t match with the overacting world they inhabit, which results in largely exaggerated, but dull dialogue moments. The voice acting from everyone is very average, no one does bad, but it never feels passionate in the right places. They seem good in the music moments and even the occasional emotional moment, but every other instance seems to be set on okay standards. Elijah Wood is fine, but a little bland and forgettable, Brittany Murphy as the love interest acts well and sings pretty good, but she’s pretty much pointless in the overall story, Robbin Williams in a dual performance seems weird, but he does fine as both; even though he says nothing funny, he does almost make it funny through what a great talent he was. The others in the group all mesh into one accent and it feels weird to have some many if barely any of them stand out, so they just feel like an excuse to have more goofy voices on-screen. Hugo Weaving isn’t in the movie much, but he’s enjoyably over-the-top as the bad guy, and Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman have the stupidest voices, but whenever they have to legitimately act out a serious moment, they get through their scenes okay.

The effects are very half and half. For the time the penguins probably looked realistic, but now they look a little awkward. The simple design makes them easier to incorporate with CG, so it works enough though and for animals that would be to include human features, they are made to be decently expressive, and you can usually tell the main characters apart from the other just through their designs. Mumble especially looks very odd because of the motion-captured face he has, which provides an uncanny element does not present in the other penguins which honestly makes him hard to look at sometimes. The film does have some nice colors and backgrounds shots that gives it a nice atmosphere and the camera shots by cinematographer David Peers displays the environment in a very cinematic manner. The lighting in those scenes makes the environments glisten and creates some wonderful sceneries, and putting a movie in the Antarctic is actually something that isn’t usually seen in the mainstream, so to see it with its unique colors and completely alien landscapes is actually pretty refreshing for the time. The camera has good motion to it in regard to the action scenes. It moves very fluidly and keeps the scenes fast paced and creates intimacy with the close ups, making the action feel more intense. Also, it offers a variety of shots to keep the action from feeling stale and leads way to some well-composed set pieces, even capturing free-falling very well.  The music is very juke-box musical style, but unlike other examples within this musical genre, it doesn’t feel like a hindrance. Since the film makes it clear the purpose of the songs is how they’re used to establish a romantic connection rather than for story-telling purposes, it honestly works fine enough, and the songs chosen are good choices and tell the narrative fine. Even though they do lead to some stupid puns, they are all sung fine. They have nice backing to them, and the singers sound engaged and focused, but even the songs stop halfway through the movie, making the film feel even more split and cluttered.

Happy Feet is better than it deserves to be, but that still doesn’t make it work as a whole. For something that looked dead on arrival, the fact that it was able to construct something before it crumbled into the sea like a piece of an iceberg is honestly very impressive and makes the movie more tragic than if it just didn’t try at all and banked on its gimmicky premise. If it was given more time and wasn’t so reliant on tacky concepts, it could have been something more adult and interesting, but results in a childish clutter. Though the shots, songs and scenarios are pretty and whenever it presents itself as a legitimate film, it’s not that bad, it doesn’t mean a lot in the grand scheme of things. Considering how the film did critically well and that it made a profit at the box office, it did manage to strike a chord with people, but just imagine what could’ve come from this if it was allowed to be stronger. Nothing in the film is bad for kids and some elements are even worth seeing again, but overall, it results in an overly extreme, but slightly unmemorable film. Not the worst, can be viewed again, but is unfortunately not a perfect boogie wonderland.