Happy Feet
HAPPY FEET (Blu-ray)
Warner Home Video
Release Date: October 4th, 2010
Certificate (UK): U
Running Time: 104 minutes
Director: George Miller
Cast: Elijah Wood, Robin Williams, Brittany Murphy, Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Hugo Weaving
Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman lend their voices to this animated adventure with live action sequences where Emperor Penguins use heart songs (a unique sound each penguin makes) to attract a mate.
What’s an Emperor Penguin? Well, they’re the tallest of all the living penguin species and they live in the Antarctic. They can be as tall as 122 cm (48 in) and they can weigh as much as 22 to 45 kg (49 to 99 lb). But the Emperor Penguins face a threat, there is a growing lack of fish in the oceans for them to feed on.
In the movie, Hugh and Nicole play Memphis and Norma Jean, 2 vocally talented penguins who court each other with heartsongs; their own versions of “Kiss” by Prince and “Heartbreak Hotel” by Elvis. After choosing each other as their mate, Norma Jean lays an egg which she leaves with Memphis to incubate while she goes to sea with the other females to fish. Unfortunately Memphis drops the egg and during the hatching season, while proud fathers look on at their offspring breaking into the world, Memphis sees a fluffy-headed, off-balance little chick who grows up to have the most awful singing voice (Elijah Wood)!
They name him Mumble but soon notice he does the most curious thing with his feet; he tap dances, but in a land where penguins are supposed to sing, Mumbles is ostracized for being different.
I watched the movie along with our pint-sized reviewer Jonathan. An avid movie fan, Jonathan is 8 years old and a few days after the movie we had a chat. Here’s what he had to say about Happy Feet:
JONATHAN: Happy Feet is about 2 penguins, a dad and a mum who have an egg and it hatches to be a baby. The mum goes to fish and the dad drops the egg.
And then what happens?
JONATHAN: The baby grew up into a toddler and he went to classes for singing. The teacher said try to sing but his voice was terribly bad. So the mum and dad went to another professionally trained penguin to sing but they couldn’t teach the baby to sing. So he was just went on without singing, he had some talent but with his feet.
Happy Feet finally graduated and he went fishing with a lot of other penguins and Gloria, a girl penguin. But he gets lost. There were some eagles that tried to eat him and a seal that tries to eat him too!
What was your favourite part?
JONATHAN: My favourite part is when the seal tries catching him and he meets the other five crazy penguins, the amigos. And I loved it when the man falls down and he stops dancing.
There were some sad parts too, weren’t there? When Mumble gets caught by the humans…
JONATHAN: It was sad and embarrassing. But when the girl taps on the window, Happy Feet starts to dance, he think she goes away and he gets sad again but she comes back with more and more and people. It’s one of my favourite movies.
As Jonathan was saying, one day Mumble (or Happy Feet as he calls him) gets separated from the other penguins when he falls asleep on an iceberg. He wakes up to find himself all alone and after a leopard seal tries to eat him, he finds a group of Adélie Penguins. These are smaller penguins that live on the southern part of the Antarctic coast. Mumbles joins their group and they welcome his tap dancing skills and finds a way to woo Gloria (Brittany Murphy) the girl penguin, without having to sing. But he is soon compelled by curiosity and determination to find out what is causing the shortage of fish in the ocean.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
- 2 additional fully animated sequences
- Behind the Scenes of Happy Feet
- Creating the Tap
- Private Dance Lesson
- Spanish Lesson
- 3 Music videos
- Classic Cartoon
Happy Feet might have a very strong political message, but it goes about delivering it with a song in its heart. It is a beautifully told and visualised story of how one little penguin can make a difference, despite being different. The animation of the penguins and their home is really well done and on Blu-ray the picture quality is crisp, clear and really gives you that artic feel!
About Jonathan Samuel
I’m Jonathan, I’m 9 years old and I’m in 5th grade. I like watching The Simpsons, Naruto Uzumaki, Horrid Henry and Harry Potter. I like going to screenings, watching movies and reviewing them. I like reading action books, comics and playing games like Mario Kart, Plants vs. Zombies and Monopoly, the board game.
When I grow up I want to be a mad scientist, my uncle says I’m ¾ of the way there already. Or a gameocologist, someone who makes and plays games and rates them too. For now I’m happy just watching and reviewing movies and being a kid.
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