The RubeTube

Happy Feet has got to be one of the worst animated films in recent history. I can't imagine how it's been getting fairly positive reviews.

(SPOILER ALERT!)

The animation of Happy Feet is top-notch. The songs are great. The singing and dancing is so good, it's hard to tell if they wanted to make a musical or a dance movie. But that's all the praise I'm willing to heap upon this movie. On a scale of 1-10, I rate the plot a big, fat zero. I can't think of any plot spoilers because this movie offers absolutely nothing interesting, even for kids. The purpose of the story is for the animators to have an excuse to make thousands of penguins sing and dance.

And the characters? Don't get me started on those. The main character, Mumble, is a penguin who can't sing like his fellow emperor penguins, but he is instead gifted with mad tap-dancing skillz. Towards the end of the movie, all the penguins are able to follow his dance steps, effectively nullifying any advantage he might have had with the girls. Speaking of girls, there is an attempt at having a love story with the penguin of his dreams, Gloria, who is absolutely drop-down gorgeous. Unfortunately, she is as sexy and attractive as every other emperor penguin in the movie, male or female; they all look alike. Note: you can tell if a penguin is female if its lips are pink. Oh, penguins don't have lips. Right.

The bulk of the comedy is provided by a bunch of Latino penguins (Latino penguins?!? WTF) who have nothing better to do than follow Mumble around. There are too many inside jokes that only the penguins in the movie audience will be able to relate to. As for conflict, I thought that the sea lion (was it a sea lion?) that chased Mumble all over the Antarctic continent had the potential to be a great villain. He even had an awesome parting line: "I know where you live." He made good on his threats by never showing up again for the rest of the movie.

(END OF SPOILERS)

Andreé and I watched this movie after a long, hard day at work. She was really looking forward to it. After all, one gets the impression that Happy Feet is one of those movies that you watch just to relax and feel warm and fuzzy afterwards. The actual effect is the opposite. The movie isn't even that cute. Mumble is a cute baby penguin for the first thirty minutes of the movie, until he grows up and starts talking like Frodo Baggins (voiced by Elijah Wood, by the way). The only cute parts are the ones you saw in the trailers. And speaking of trailers, for a movie that has been showing trailers for so long, you'd think Happy Feet would be the animated film to end all animated films. Unfortunately, it just doesn't deliver on the hype.

The RubeTube's official rating: a well-deserved F-. "What's your heartsong?" my ass.

(Happy Feet was so horrible, I was tempted to start a new feature similar to the Pick of the Week, but instead showcasing the worst crap the world has to offer.)

Labels: awful, Happy Feet, movies, reviews