Happy Feet (2006)
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Happy Feet Movie Review
Happy Feet is a 2006 animated musical comedy film directed by George Miller and starring Elijah Wood and Robin Williams. It’s a frequently silly, but actually rather strong flick.
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“Man, how’re we gonna tell his mama he brought us
all the way out here just to kill himself?“
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It follows a bunch of penguins, and one of them cannot sing for the life of him, but he can tap dance. After getting banished from his home, he sets on an adventure to find out where all the fish are leaving, and eventually he comes across humans themselves. There is a lot to swallow here, so let’s talk about it one by one.
First off, the movie is a musical. And that is where most of the hate it receives comes from. And yes, I do agree somewhat that the film is way too modern and silly in its musical numbers and excessive dancing. However, I personally did like quite a few of those, and they genuinely chose the very famous, catchy tunes. I also found the motion capture being done on the penguins’ dancing movements stupendous, especially amazing for its time.
As for the comedy part of it, it’s also a mixed bag. I did find it rather dated in stereotyping the Latino community in particular, but on the other hand, I am not going to be a PC lunatic and obsess over the minute details when it comes to these things, and on the contrary, the movie addressed racism as one of its themes somewhat solidly. And though overly silly at times, I genuinely laughed a couple of times as I found the sidekick characters quite strong with some of their one-liners being genuinely amusing.
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But where Happy Feet truly thrives is in the last area, and that is in the adventure and drama departments. The movie starts off childish, it then goes to a very modernized comedic territory, but then it switches gears and becomes a full-on, quite dark at times, impressive icy adventure that makes use of its surroundings gorgeously, and delivers on the sheer spectacle of some of the imagery and stellar action sequences. The dangerous terrain and the predator angle worked stupendously.
And the third act is truly something special. Once we get to see the humans, the film becomes a moving ecological tale of conservation and helping other species. The zoo scene is very effective at conveying how horrible these confined places are for the animals while that last sequence reminded me so pleasantly of ‘Close Encounters’ as this very wonderful message of learning about other species and getting to accept and even help them.
I did like the voice cast with everyone doing a good job, and the characters are quite solid, though mostly archetypal. Mumble is a well-developed, likable protagonist, I liked Gloria and how the two thankfully did not end up together, that was refreshing. Ramon is hilarious and such a great sidekick whereas Memphis is a very strong metaphor for religious fanaticism.
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Happy Feet features a strong, but overly populated soundtrack with way too many songs, especially in that first half. The pacing there is not great, but later on the film becomes quite engaging and thrilling, and yes, even quite moving and sophisticated. The animation is fantastic for its time with very stellar penguin designs, a good use of motion capture on the humans and the dance movements, and pretty solid imagery throughout. It won an Oscar, and I am not too against it as many others are, as I find it to be quite underrated overall.
Happy Feet is a very messy movie and it is difficult to get accustomed to so many of its changing tides in terms of tones and genres. It starts off as a musical, and an overly modernized one, though a lot of fun at times. Then it moves to a comedy with some stereotypes, but very amusing sidekicks. Ultimately, it goes fully into an adventure territory and it becomes quite thrilling and impressive in that area. The standouts are that third act with a truly commendable ecological message and very strong animation for its time. It’s to me a rather underrated flick.
