Happy Feet

Dont ask me what the movie is about.. I'm a little confused here.. Is it about someone being differently abled and proving oneself? Is it about the environment being destroyed by the humans and the consequences being faced by other creatures who cant voice their protest? Is it a validation of the theory of alien abductions? Or is it a love story? Mumble, Happy Feet, suffers a trauma as an egg when his Dad drops it sorta. Supposedly as a result of that, Mumble is unable to sing unlike other penguins but only tap dances all the time. His being differently abled makes him an outcast among his fellow penguins and except his Mom he has no support, except that his love interest, Gloria, has a soft corner for him too.



An eagle introduces the concept of Alien abduction which is nothing but humans catching him and tagging him.

From the POV of penguins and other creatures of Antarctica, humans are the aliens. They are the ones responsible for destroying the pristine environment of the Antarctic with their "research" activities and uninhibited trawling and all the garbage left behind. Fish populations are going down and the penguins are finding it hard to survive. So Mumble sets off to try to convince the aliens to stop fishing and lands up in a zoo where a kid watches him tap dance and he becomes a sensation. Next thing you know, Mumble is back to the Antarctic with a GPS device attached to his back! Sorry... but I think if an animal tap dances, he lands up on TV shows and ocean parks. When was the last time somebody let a performing animal free like that? If they wanted to track a penguin, they might have as well done that with any other one. Quite stupid to let a performer like that go $$$. Anyway, they follow Mumble to his home and see this huge population of penguins all convinced by Mumble to tap dance to seek the help of aliens and convince them to stop fishing in their waters. The aliens get the message loud and clear! What follows is a really brief international debate on deep sea fishing etc etc and the environmentalists win the battle at the (Dis)United Nations. (Sigh! I wish things were that easy for Greenpeace). So finally, everything falls into place. The penguins have the fish. Mumble is accepted back into the penguin society and gets his love Gloria. Actually, Gloria is nothing but the usual Hindi Movie heroine who doesn't much role in the movie but is there coz every movie has a heroine for the hero.

At the end of it, I got up a bit confused what the movie actually was about. Whatever, but being a kids movie, I reaaallly wouldn't expect songs and lyrics like "Lets talk about X baby, lets talk about you and me", "Move your body close to mine", "Love me all night long".. And.. you NEVER EVER EVER EVER say something like "Go forth and multiply" (F*** off in layman's terms) in a kids movie. Oh puhhhllleaasee... What the HELL were they thinking while writing the script?

How it got a PG rating from MPAA or past the Indian Censors baffles me quite a lot. Perhaps, Indian Censorboard things it is very gentlemanish to speak Fs in English, but don't even dream of translating that to any Cs in Hindi or any Indian languages for that matter.

Animation was really good though.

I liked the 5 Amigos characters the best who, despite being from another penguin family, take Mumble as their friend and stand with him through thick and thin. It is a fun-filled film but didn't find anything that great about it, say like Finding Nemo or Ice Age - doesn't even come as close as Siberia is to Sahara.