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Cute flick is the Blues Brothers with feathers
HAPPY FEET
Directed by George Miller
Certificate PG
IT is HARD to know where to place this film. At first glance, it appears to be the typically syrupy-sweet animated children’s movie, where the producers have one eye on the huge profits to be made from merchandising little dolls based on the undeniably cute characters that star.
However, before too long, a harder edge emerges, and for all the cute singing penguins, there is a bizarre and subversive feel about many of the scenes. It is packed with those type of jokes that the kids will enjoy because of the cute and cheeky delivery, and the adults will understand and nod at each other knowingly.
Director George Miller was behind the Babe films and that shows good form.
Anyone who can make a film with a straight face about a talking pig and how he plans to escape the abattoir by becoming good at rounding up sheep has something going for it.
The story goes like this: Our hero is a little chap called Mumble, voiced by Elijah Wood.
We meet the funny little lad born to his proud parents, Memphis the Elvis penguin (Hugh Jackman) and Norma Jean (Nicole Kidman doing a husky Marilyn Monroe voice).
But poor Mumble has a very debilitating problem – he can’t sing.
And singing is what these penguins do. What makes this colony of non-flying feathered friends is the fact they spend their whole time singing.
Now Mumble is not completely talentless. He can tap dance like Sammy Davis Junior, but penguins just aren’t into shuffling their feet and this is frowned on by the older penguins.
What if you just aren’t born to sing, but born to dance instead? Does that make you any less of a penguin? Such questions are the burning issues in Happy Feet.
Mumble doesn’t have the voice to find himself a mate, and is treated like an outcast by the rest of his family group. But then he finds another gang of penguins who like his ability to moonwalk. They decide to help him win the love of the penguin of his dreams, the gorgeous Gloria.
But Mumble’s quest is overshadowed by the sudden disappearance of fish from their favourite hunting grounds. If Mumble can find out where the fish have gone, perhaps he can win the love of Gloria?
There is lots of cool things about the movie. The computer animation is brilliant, and penguins are of course among the most loveable creatures in the world. They have a toddler like charm, as the success of last year’s surprise hit The March of the Penguins shows.
And the music also helps bounce the story along. Everywhere you turn on this icy peninsular are voices raising themselves upwards. It’s like a feathered version of the Blues Brothers, including some rather scary chase scenes where our little hero is harassed through the waters by a seal and then, later on, by killer whales.
And although you can tell how it will all work out okay in the end, the story is not really the point. The gorgeous graphics, the funny songs and the endearing little flippers are the reasons this is a nice film for the child hiding in most adults.
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