Posted: 11/21/2006

Happy Feet

(2006)

by C.J. Arellano

Not even Casino Royale, a venerable 40-year-old franchise’s return to form heralded by both critics and audiences, can stop the CGI-kid-flick juggernaut. This past weekend, the brand new Bond, James Bond was narrowly edged out at the top box office spot by the singing, dancing, being-cute penguins of Happy Feet, and it’s quite a statement: if the world’s most formidable secret agent can’t stop the precocious talking animals, who can?

The box office durability of animated kid flicks is near eerie. From Cars to Over the Hedge to Open Season and Monster House, as long as the tots will need placating, Hollywood will keep churning them out like a baseball dispenser. But being about 507th in this year’s parade of pixelated pop culture parables, does Happy Feet rise above the rest as a film worth something more than a $10 pacifier?

It doesn’t rise. Fittingly, it perhaps soft-shoes above them.

Happy Feet is a curious, if not Hollywood-formula obvious, blend of Finding Nemo (adorable animal outcast!), Moulin Rouge (familiar pop songs in movie-musical context!), and March of the Penguins (penguins!). It tells the story of Mumbles (Elijah Wood), a penguin who is born not with the socially expected talent of singing, but instead with the ability to tap dancing his little Arctic heart out, much to the chagrin of the penguin community, in particular his father Memphis (Hugh Jackman) and standard love interest Gloria (Brittany Murphy).

After his tap dancing’s somehow blamed for the community’s food shortage (you thought Kevin Bacon had it rough), the community exiles Mumbles to the Arctic wilderness, where he fortunately meets the Crazy Life-Affirming Sidekicks of the Week: five rapscallion mini-penguins (their wingspanned waddle is priceless), the leader of whom is voiced by the king of Crazy Life-Affirming Sidekicks of the Week, Robin Williams. Together, they journey to solve the food shortage and—spoiler alert!—Mumbles learns the value of acceptance and the power of believing in yourself.

Happy Feet preaches individuality and uniqueness, but does it come close to practicing? Um, sort of. The film does have a genuine heart and a spry sense of humor that never reaches the awkwardly crude style of the clunkier CGI kid films. The song-and-dance stuff is infectious if you let it be, though one might wish that with all the spirit and creativity going on here, the makers of Happy Feet would have made the extra effort of just going ahead and composing original songs and music.

Moulin Rouge recycled indelible pop songs, arguably, to comment on mass art’s perception of love. Happy Feet doesn’t have such a solid excuse. Its penguins belt everything from “Tell Me Something Good” to Elvis’s “Heartbreak Hotel” as their so-called “heart songs” (think of them as aural pheromone), but nothing is ever even hinted at why these penguins are using our human songs. Alas, they’re just there to make us go, “Ha, a penguin’s singing Lionel Richie. Now that’s just ridiculous.”

Still, Happy Feet has a slick, airy sensibility about itself that is never belabored and quite generous in heart and fun. Its story is hardly ice-shattering, but the film is careful not to go to the place where CGI kid films are nothing more than a cynic’s money machine, where the penguins would be making the lazy fart jokes or the forced pop culture references. Yes, they might be singing Salt’N’Pepa and Queen for no good reason, but they seem to be having quite a time doing it. And you know what? We’re more than happy to tap dance along.

C.J. Arellano is allegedly a writer of all disciplines, particularly of film and film analysis. He lives and occasionally screams in Chicago.

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