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The latest marvel in computer animation, this movie has a couple of serious surprises: first, it delivers a powerful ecological message suitable to the kids who’re the primary audience; second, hot blonde Brittany Murphy shows off some powerful vocal talent on Boogie Wonderland and especially Queen’s Somebody to Love; and, third, director George Miller continues to march as far from his Mad Max roots as possible–his last picture was toddler-friendly Babe: Pig in the City. Happy Feet is a fine fictional compliment to both March of the Penguins and An Inconvenient Truth.
The story is fairly straightahead: Mumbles (Elijah Wood) is slightly damaged during incubation, so his singing voice is terrible, off-key and screetchy. In his village this is a big problem because everyone else is a fine singer and each penguin uses his or her own heartsong to attract the right mate. Mumbles’ parents, Memphis (Hugh Jackman, using a Presley-ish vocal with Heartbreak Hotel) and Norma Jean (Nicole Kidman, doing a nice version of Prince’s Kiss), try everything to fix his singing but to no avail.
Even his true love Gloria (Murphy) can’t get past it. Mumbles does have serious dancing skills, courtesy of Savion Glover and impressive motion capture software, but village elder Noah (Hugo Weaving, previously Agent Smith and Elrond) claims this is heresy likely to make their religious icon angry and only worsen the paucity of fish for eating. Our hero sadly leaves, aiming to find an answer to the food problems.
He meets up with Ramon (Robin Williams), a short Latino penguin, whose village believes that impressive pebble collections are the way to attract a wife. Ramon has more self-confidence than 10 Mumbles but is immediately a fan of the latter’s dancing and decides to help the poor guy out by taking him to mysterious guru Lovelace (also Williams, but using a sedate version of his Mork voice). The three, along with Ramon’s four bird crew, take off to a place where Lovelace had met strange aliens (humans) and gotten his guru-ji.
Adventure ensues, Mumbles returns to his own village, wins Gloria’s love and convinces even hardhearted Noah that dancing is a fine accompaniment to song. Happy Feet, with the script credited to Miller, his Babe co-writer Judy Morris, John Collee (the Russell Crow nautical mess Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World) and Warren Coleman, does a really nice job integrating the songs and dancing, and leaves plenty of room for Williams’ humor while still presenting a serious message about how people are destroying the sea ecology that supports lovable penguins in a way that younger children as well as their parents can understand.
recommended
