Happy Feet
Monday, April 16, 2007
3 GOOMBAS
How can you not like a movie with cute, fuzzy penguins dancing and singing in unison? Unless you're a sadist, you really can't, and its only for the fuzzy penguins that I enjoyed the movie. I guess that means I'm not a sadist.
Happy Feet is about a community of Emperor penguins whose signature talent is singing. However, poor Mumble is unable to sign, but instead, he can dance up a storm. Of course, his differing talent is shunned by the Emperor penguin society, and his father, reminiscent of the archetypal, masculine "my way or the highway" kind of man/penguin, is embarrassed by him. He also has a southern accent (haha get it? He lives in the South Pole). Mumble then finds friendship with a different community of penguins. I'm not quite sure what kind of penguins they are, but since they have Mexican accents, I'm assuming that in real life these penguins life further south than the emperor penguins do. Clever, huh? In the process, Mumble realizes that "aliens" are taking their fish, but the Emperor penguin community blames it on Mumble, saying that his dancing is angering the fish gods. Aliens don't exist like the fish gods do, duh.
Although the movie had some witty jokes and some superbly designed dancing penguins, the writing department was definitely hurting, probably because 90% of the budget went to the witty jokes and superbly designed dancing penguin department. Classic movies of this same genre like Toy Story and Monster's Inc. are only good because the story bases its plot on what it would really be like if toys came to life or if monsters got their energy from scaring kids. If penguins could dance or sing and the humans found out
How can you not like a movie with cute, fuzzy penguins dancing and singing in unison? Unless you're a sadist, you really can't, and its only for the fuzzy penguins that I enjoyed the movie. I guess that means I'm not a sadist.
Happy Feet is about a community of Emperor penguins whose signature talent is singing. However, poor Mumble is unable to sign, but instead, he can dance up a storm. Of course, his differing talent is shunned by the Emperor penguin society, and his father, reminiscent of the archetypal, masculine "my way or the highway" kind of man/penguin, is embarrassed by him. He also has a southern accent (haha get it? He lives in the South Pole). Mumble then finds friendship with a different community of penguins. I'm not quite sure what kind of penguins they are, but since they have Mexican accents, I'm assuming that in real life these penguins life further south than the emperor penguins do. Clever, huh? In the process, Mumble realizes that "aliens" are taking their fish, but the Emperor penguin community blames it on Mumble, saying that his dancing is angering the fish gods. Aliens don't exist like the fish gods do, duh.
Although the movie had some witty jokes and some superbly designed dancing penguins, the writing department was definitely hurting, probably because 90% of the budget went to the witty jokes and superbly designed dancing penguin department. Classic movies of this same genre like Toy Story and Monster's Inc. are only good because the story bases its plot on what it would really be like if toys came to life or if monsters got their energy from scaring kids. If penguins could dance or sing and the humans found out
*******SPOILER WARNING*********
we wouldn't make an effort to stop fishing in their waters for that sole reason. We'd probably try and take a few more specimens from their natural habitat, bring them back to our civilizations, and try and teach them an act for Sea World. There would be no political debate about it, as was briefly alluded to in Happy Feet. We would justify it as "learning" about nature, and take them. Maybe there would be some grass root organization like "Dancing with the Emperors" that lobbied for penguin rights, but the world would not stop, as it did in the movie, to spark world debate regarding the matter. Not to mention that this vital section of the plot only lasted about 10 seconds in the actual movie.
Although Happy Feet was a fun popcorn movie, it lacked in storytelling, and without a story, you have no movie. Happy Feet will never be Toy Story caliber, but I think the filmmakers knew that this movie was just about dancing penguins and nothing more.
1 comments
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)