Happy Feet tells the tale of Mumble, a young penguin who can't sing, but who has moves like Fred Astaire (or, more precisely, tap dancer Savion Glover, whose twinkle toes were motion captured for the film). He gets a frosty reception from his penguin peers however, who traditionally find their soul-mates through song, and view his dancing as a little odd. So Mumble sets off in search of the 'aliens' who are stealing all the fish...
Computer-animated children's films featuring crudely anthropomorphised animals are ten a penny, so it's nice to see penguins that actually move like penguins. Using a combination of motion capture and 3D animation, the featured birds, beasts and fishes are all faithfully rendered, along with the stunning Arctic landscape; Happy Feet owes more to National Geographic than to Shrek, and that's as refeshing as a blast of Arctic air.
With show-stopping song and dance numbers, a strong voice cast and stunning art direction, this penguin is well worth p-p-picking up; it's the best Western mainstream animation since The Incredibles.
'Dance Like A Penguin: Stomp To The Beat' challenge.
Film Description
An Antarctic animated comedy, Happy Feet features the voices of Robin Williams, Nicole Kidman and Elijah Wood.
In Antarctica, the land of the Emperor penguins, a young penguin named Mumble is born. Much to the other penguins' consternation, he cannot sing a heartsong - a song that expresses his being. What he can do however, is tapdance! When famine threatens the colony, Mumble is unjustly blamed for the catastrophe, so he and his friends set out to try and find its true cause.
