Monday, November 20, 2006
HAPPY FEET
My wife wanted to see Happy Feet, and while I’m a fan of animated films, I wasn’t really looking forward to this one. It just seemed too cutesy, and so many people have tried to capitalize on Pixar’s success that quality isn’t always a guarantee. Well, the film is just as cutesy-wutesy as you’d expect, with cutesy-wutesy penguins of all shapes and sizes singing and dancing. My teeth started to grind when I realized that the film was doing the “Moulin Rouge” thing of having all the characters singing snippets of modern pop songs, but mercifully it was only snippets so they never lasted too long (conversely, this also meant that if there was a song you liked, it wouldn’t last too long).
I was pleasantly surprised to see that the film took a ninety degree turn to the left towards the end. It wouldn’t have been a surprise if I had read any of the reviews, so maybe there’s a lesson there. While it had what was pretty much a textbook ending, I found that it dealt with it in a fairly original manner. I guess since I went into the movie with zero expectations, I found I was able to enjoy quite a lot of it. My wife didn’t enjoy the movie much at all, since she was hoping for a cutesy cookie-cutter story and found the introduction and pursuit of the other plot angle disruptive and non-compelling.
One thing they kind of gloss over, even though it’s the main point of the film, is why the main character looks different. His egg was dropped before he was born, so presumably that’s why he acts different from the other penguins. However, the filmmakers had to make him look different from the other characters – tough to do with penguins – so they kept his juvenile down coat on him long after he should have molted. Presumably, this is explained by the egg-dropping as well, but it had us scratching our heads through the whole film. They did do a nice job with the subtle pattern on his feathers, though. My wife found his eye color even more jarring. Penguins – including his parents – have red eyes. Yet the main character’s eyes were a bright piercing blue. I just figured that was because he was played by Elijah Wood. “What, is it in his contract or something?” my wife demanded.
The only other thing is that for the entire film we were waiting for them to pull out the surfboards. There was even one scene when I was sure they would, but they were completely a no-show. It was odd, because the surfing angle was played up heavily in the first trailer we saw for the film, but we chalked it up to it being a preliminary ad to drum up interest. Turns out, we were both remembering a trailer for another computer-animated penguin movie called Surf’s Up, scheduled to come out next year. Cowabunga.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that the film took a ninety degree turn to the left towards the end. It wouldn’t have been a surprise if I had read any of the reviews, so maybe there’s a lesson there. While it had what was pretty much a textbook ending, I found that it dealt with it in a fairly original manner. I guess since I went into the movie with zero expectations, I found I was able to enjoy quite a lot of it. My wife didn’t enjoy the movie much at all, since she was hoping for a cutesy cookie-cutter story and found the introduction and pursuit of the other plot angle disruptive and non-compelling.
One thing they kind of gloss over, even though it’s the main point of the film, is why the main character looks different. His egg was dropped before he was born, so presumably that’s why he acts different from the other penguins. However, the filmmakers had to make him look different from the other characters – tough to do with penguins – so they kept his juvenile down coat on him long after he should have molted. Presumably, this is explained by the egg-dropping as well, but it had us scratching our heads through the whole film. They did do a nice job with the subtle pattern on his feathers, though. My wife found his eye color even more jarring. Penguins – including his parents – have red eyes. Yet the main character’s eyes were a bright piercing blue. I just figured that was because he was played by Elijah Wood. “What, is it in his contract or something?” my wife demanded.
The only other thing is that for the entire film we were waiting for them to pull out the surfboards. There was even one scene when I was sure they would, but they were completely a no-show. It was odd, because the surfing angle was played up heavily in the first trailer we saw for the film, but we chalked it up to it being a preliminary ad to drum up interest. Turns out, we were both remembering a trailer for another computer-animated penguin movie called Surf’s Up, scheduled to come out next year. Cowabunga.
# posted by Renfield @ 12:48 PM 
