Review: Happy Feet Two

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Happy Feet 2

It's taken a long time for me to be anything but suspicious of computer-animated movies coming from anyone but Pixar. The competing studios tended to favor style over substance, often eschewing character development and thoughtful storytelling for pop culture references and the flashiest animation they could manage. (And even that level of animation was often an embarrassment next to Pixar's artistry.) Recent CGI movies like How to Train Your Dragon and Rango seem to be breaking that trend a bit, but it's still kind of a crap shoot. 

Happy Feet Two skirts the line between the sincere attempt to tell a story and animated showpieces for their own sake. In the latter it is highly successful -- there's a level of spectacle on display here of which any animator could be proud. In the former, sadly, the film falls short. The central dilemma -- the hero's flock of fellow penguins is trapped in a valley of ice by a wandering iceberg -- is less than thrilling, though I suppose it's difficult to find a good threat that can be conquered by applied tap dancing. 

Spliced in between the scenes of penguin action are the adventures of two krill shrimp (Will and Bill, voiced by Brad Pitt and Matt Damon, respectively). The existential crisis of these two shrimp learning to live outside their swarm (Will maintains that he is destined to "move up the food chain") is easily the most entertaining thing about the movie. The shrimp seem to be more or less anatomically correct and yet anthropomorphized expertly, and the dialogue between the two is sharp enough to make me believe that these scenes were written separately from the rest of the movie. Not that there should be much surprise there -- four writers are credited for the screenplay. By the end of the story I was hoping the film would leave the penguins out of it entirely and shift into all-krill mode. Alas.

What Happy Feet Two lacks in compelling story it tries to make up for with pop culture jokes that will make it uncomfortably dated in a few years and celebrity voices. Robin Williams is given two characters to voice (one is more than enough) and Hank Azaria channels his inner Norwegian as Sven, the "flying penguin." Elijah Wood brings the only touch of sincerity to the party with an earnest performance that is mostly lost among scenery chewing wildlife and hip-hopping baby penguins. 

As with many family films, few of these flaws will be detected by the film's intended audience (my own five-year-old lapped it up) but it won't do much for the adults who have to sit with them. Some of the Antarctic wilderness scenes are breathtaking and the exchanges between Will and Bill are genuinely witty, but that's about it. 

If you'd like to hear a little bit of my daughter's reaction to the movie, you can listen to her telling her mom about it.