Movie Reviews

When the ad campaign for the theatrical release of Happy Feet started, I was amazed and perplexed. The animation looked fantastic, but, for the life of me, I had no idea what the movie was about. The most amazing part was that not a single person I knew had any idea what the movie was about, but it had dancing penguins and an all-star cast, leaving us all mesmerized. Not only was everyone mesmerized, they all planned on seeing it without any clue what it was about.

It turns out there is a plot, and it is the classic ugly-duckling story, just with music videos throughout. Mumble, the young penguin, was born with the need to dance. Unfortunately, that is unacceptable to the penguins around him, and they ostracize him because he is different (high school, anyone?). They also blame him for the disappearance of their food source. He leaves his family and finds another group of penguins that treasure dance more than anything. With this new group, he finds who he truly is, as well as the “aliens” (humans) who are taking their food.

The 2.40:1 transfer is stunning, which it should be with animated content. The sound mix is done very well (available in Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus EX), especially for the music-video sections. There’s a decent amount of extras, plus the disc is an HD DVD/DVD combo. The dance lesson extra with Savion Glover will have you saying “I can walk like a penguin.”