There’s something about penguins that’s infinitely likeable. Talking penguins that sing, dance and provide us with insight to life are even better. So when making an animated film revolving around all of this, it’s kind of difficult to mess it up. Here we have Happy Feet 2—a movie that gets by more because of its ability to warm hearts than anything else.
We get a whole bunch of plot in this animated movie geared towards children. Start with Mumble (voiced by Elijiah Wood), who is now an unintentionally inept father to his little son Erik (Ava Acres). Erik is finding it difficult to feel accepted by his own kind and cope with humiliation, while Mumble continually gives his son the least supportive advice in the book. Mumble’s lack of parenting skills is understandable considering in the first installment he had plenty of his own problems growing up. He was a penguin that couldn’t sing in a society of vocally gifted penguins, and was outcast because of it.
So now his son is dealing with similar issues, causing him to run off with Latino-penguin Ramon (Robin Williams) to his side of Antarctica. There he is captivated by The Mighty Sven (Hank Azaria), a supposed penguin that can fly. And while Mumble sets out to bring his son home, they return to find that the shifting of the earth has blocked passage to and from their home ice.
There’s an additional side story including Will and Bill the Krill. Voiced amusingly by Brad Pitt and Matt Damon, respectively, these two shrimp-wannabes venture off from their swarm to seek a greater purpose in life. The pairing worked to near perfection towards the overall purpose of the film. Had there not been so much happening around them, it would have been even easier to appreciate their storyline. They’re quite literally small fish in a big pond, though, so maybe that’s the point.
Getting a grasp on everything, we have life lessons in accepting yourself, accepting others, the importance of family, not passing judgment too quickly, the value of teamwork and the comfort of feeling secure. That’s a mouthful, and it’s a lot to process in 105 minutes. That’s not to say that each message wasn’t made glaringly apparent, because often times there isn’t much need to read between the lines in an animation, but writer/director George Miller (among a few co-writers) replaced substance with quality in jam packing this thing with plot.
The first Happy Feet focused on Mumble alone; while his journey throughout the movie was filled with various plot points and the introduction of characters galore, the attention was still on him. At the onset, Happy Feet Two seems to be about Erik, then it shifts to Mumble. And with the journey they take home, there are a few too many disjointed plot points.
But that’s not to say there isn’t a lot here to like. The 3D is outstanding, a quality I don’t expect much from in any movie. Animation seems to be where 3D belongs most, as it adds depth to the picture and can easily involve the audience more in the film. Two’s visuals weren’t as unique as its predecessor (it lacks some of the stylistic choices from the first, like the chase scenes and roller coaster-like effects), but to sit there and noticeably appreciate the 3D is a new and refreshing feeling to me.
The voice acting, both with line reading and in musical numbers, is top notch as well. This ridiculously star-studded cast does its part in bringing these characters to life. Among them, you have Robin Williams on the top of his game voicing two completely different characters, Sofia Vergana as Carmen, Ramon’s love interest and Pink, who gets to tout her singing chops as Mumble’s wife, Gloria.
To be clear, Happy Feet Two isn’t as brilliant as the first, which won Best Animation at the 2007 Academy Awards. But it doesn’t need to be. Most sequels aren’t. What counts is the subject matter, because the analysis of this film really doesn’t have to go any further than considering whether or not it will be successful with its target audience—and that’s children and families. Happy Feet Two, if absolutely nothing else, has the ability to heart warm the audience.
Because saying you don’t like penguins is admitting to not like feeling happy.
Critic’s Rating: 3/5
Daniel Feingold can be reached at dfeingold91@gmail.com.