Happy Feet: Movie, DVD, HD DVD, Blu-ray Review (2006)

(Originally published 2006)

Its rushed ending aside, there is plenty to recommend in the otherwise excellent computer-animated movie "Happy Feet."

The film, which George Miller ("Babe," "The Witches of Eastwick," "Mad Max") based on a script he co-wrote with John Collee, Judy Morris and Warren Coleman, seamlessly interweaves several compelling storylines, from the light and the pleasant to the downright dark and unpleasant.

The film balances moments of entertaining song-and-dance numbers and expertly conceived action sequences with themes of isolation, rejection, bullying and the need for self-acceptance. In addition to this is an ecological undercurrent that becomes dire as the story unfolds.

The movie begins with a sequence that recalls a scene from "March of the Penguins" — a male penguin is trying to protect his and his mate’s egg when he accidentally allows it to touch the Antarctic ice sheet.

Quickly, the penguin, whose name is Memphis (voice of Hugh Jackman, channeling Elvis), recovers, tucking the egg safely between his feet and a warm roll of his flesh. But when the egg hatches, out comes Mumble (Elijah Wood), who can dance up a storm (thanks to Savion Glover, whose moves are transposed to Mumble via some clever computer work), but who can’t sing, which is what all penguins must do in order to find a mate and, it turns out, in order to fit in.

Ostracized by his peers, his love interest, Gloria (Brittany Murphy), his father and in part by his mother, Norma Jean (Nicole Kidman, channeling Marilyn Monroe), Mumble has no choice but to wander alone into the world at large. There, he meets up with a group of Latino penguins (Robin Williams among them) who like him just the way he is while the story takes a darker turn into the waters around them.

Within that watery deep are no fish. Killer whales and ferocious seals abound (and attack), but the fish have disappeared. Where are they? When Mumble and his punchy posse decide to find out with the help of another penguin, Lovelace (Williams again), who slowly is being suffocated to death by the plastic beverage holder pinching his neck, it sets the movie on an unpredictable course that can be harrowing.

This is the unusual kids movie that doesn’t dumb down its story for its intended audience of tots — there isn’t one cheap toilet joke in the movie. It’s here to entertain them, yes, but it also respects them. It’s designed to encourage them to consider their place in the global community and how they might affect it, for better or worse, with their own actions toward their peers and the environment.

For that reason alone, "Happy Feet" is a welcome presence in theaters. Its ending seems oddly unfinished, but the rest of the movie is so good, it overcomes it. It features the year’s best animation, the humor is bright and clever when it needs to be, and the scenes of terror overwhelm when they must.

Grade: A-