"Happy Feet" is an odd bird. It's a CG-animated film with a "Dumbo"-esque story about an emperor penguin that unlike other penguins can't sing worth a lick but, boy, can he tap dance. Right from the start, though, you are aware that the Australian director George Miller and his talented artists are aiming for something more than a charming children's cartoon.
In the barren, hostile Antarctic wilderness where these hardy yet somewhat comical birds make their home, Miller is unafraid to go for what can only be described as a neo-biblical epic. In his depiction of a plague and a pilgrimage, a God-like penguin appearing in the sky, the portrayal of the story's hero as a prophet rejected by his own kind and even the gospel orientation of several songs, Miller boldly reaches for spiritual themes.
Happily, it all works. Miller and his co-writers Judy Morris and Warren Coleman plug in enough action sequences -- where penguins tumble down towers of ice and frantically escape predators and flee avalanches -- to entertain younger viewers.
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The many musical numbers are brilliantly choreographed and orchestrated through some of the best motion capture ever employed in a cartoon. And the film often astonishes you with the three-dimensionality of its frozen landscapes. With smart marketing, Warner Bros. Pictures has a solid entertainment that should sweep across many demographics. Nor does it hurt that last year's "March of the Penguins" educated so many moviegoers to the extraordinary world of empire penguins.
Mumble (Elijah Wood) is a cheerful penguin despite his "handicap." But his dad, Memphis (Hugh Jackman), worries, even as he hides the secret of his son's strangeness from his mom, Norma Jean (Nicole Kidman):
Memphis accidentally dropped the egg from its nest within the folds of his feathery flesh during a winter storm. So when Mumble is hatched, he cannot perform his "heartsong," the identifying croon peculiar to every penguin to attract a mate. Instead, his webbed feet break out into tap dancing. Mom is delighted, but Dad insists, "It just ain't penguin." Singing lessons end in failure, but Mumble's "hippity-hoppity" ways still attract his childhood friend, Gloria (Brittany Murphy). Then, in his rambling adventures, Mumble runs into a group of Latino penguins, the Adelie Amigos, who convince him that his dancing is actually cool.
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