2006’s Academy Award for Best Animated Feature winner,
Happy Feet is the story of a young Emperor
penguin called Mumble (Elijah Wood) who is born with an inability to sing but
happens to be a fantastic tap dancer. In the film, a penguin must choose a song
to attract a mate so Mumble finds it difficult to fit in. His dancing puts him
on the outskirts of penguin society and he eventually leaves his colony in
search of aliens (humans) who are stealing his colonies fish. Along the way he
meets some Mexican (for some reason) penguins and has an adventure on his way
to saving his colony.
For me the film can be viewed in to ways. The first is as a
children’s animation and the second is as a contemporary political analogy. As
far as being a good children’s film goes, I don’t think it is funny enough and
lacks the adventure of the likes of Finding
Nemo. The penguins are cute though and it is funny to see a penguin tap
dance. I think the film is much more successful in its subtle look at modern
political, racial and religious tensions. The film goes to great lengths to
have its lead character treat religion as superstitious nonsense which is very
brave for a children’s film. Mumble is at logger heads with the religious
establishment throughout the film and tries to uncover rational explanations
for questions that the rest of the colony attributes to their penguin god. Like
the fantastic Wall-E, the film has
strong ecological themes. It is a damming study of the problems caused by human
activity in and around the Antarctic.
Where the film’s solid political stance falls down is in its
racial stereotyping. The only black inspired penguin is portrayed by Robin
Williams as a jive-talking religious preacher while Mumble is joined by four
Latino inspired penguins that are all party animal, women harassing Adelie
penguins. The female Adelie’s are even more stereotypical than the males. I
think that this type of stereotyping is lazy at best.
The songs are all fairly modern and well performed and the
dancing is funny. Unfortunately, not much else is. The jokes are cheap and fall
flat. Also the films central romantic thread feels a bit forgotten. On the plus
side the animation looks great. Some scenes look real and the film makes great
use of camera angles.
Overall, the film is a bit of a letdown. While I think its
attitude towards religion deserves praise and the animation is very good, it is
quite boring and not very funny. It has a good idea at its centre and I liked
the central character but little else.
5/10
