|
Happy Feet Two
| Released |
2 December 2011 |
| Director |
George Miller |
Starring
|
Elijah Wood, Robin Williams, Hank Azaria, Alecia Moore, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Sofia Vergara, Common, Hugo Weaving |
Writer(s)
|
George Miller, Gary Eck, Warren Coleman, Paul Livingston |
Producer(s)
|
George Miller, Doug Mitchell, Bill Miller |
| Origin |
Australia |
| Running Time |
100 minutes |
| Genre |
Animation, family, comedy |
| Rating |
G |
|
|
Two left feet.
I can see the appeal of Happy Feet. Penguins, even the non-animated variety are adorable, inherently comic creatures. Having them sing and dance along to a collection of pop hits makes them sweet enough to give you toothache. This may have been enjoyable for the duration of the first movie but stretching this one trick pony into a second film only serves to reveal its shortcomings. Happy Feet Two, stripped of novelty value, is a tedious shuffle from song to song - the sweetness becoming more soporific than sickening.
Elijah Wood returns as dancing fool Mumble; now all grown up with a partner named Gloria (voiced by pop singer Pink) and their son, Erik. Unlike his toe-tapping father, Erik just doesn’t see the point of all this dancing (sensible creature that he is) and finds an alternative idol in The Mighty Sven (Hank Azaria), a penguin who can fly. When the Emperor penguins become trapped by a huge wall of ice, Erik turns to Sven to save his community from starvation, much to the disappointment of his father. But is this mysterious newcomer all he seems?
It’s a plot as fragile as a snowflake but nowhere near as intricate. Between songs, it all but dissolves. The comic turns of the piece (Azaria and Robin Williams) both rely on comedy accents rather than any good gags. Williams breaks out his well-worn lispy Hispanic accent for his character Ramon to tedious effect. Come to think of it, the fact that the different penguin families have different accents at all is pretty odd... The Australian Hugo Weaving giving a Scottish accent to his Elder penguin? That’s just baffling.
The only part of Happy Feet Two that I actually enjoyed was a bizarre little subplot involving two krill voiced by Matt Damon and Brad Pitt. The tale of these two buddies leaving their swarm and heading out into the open sea has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the film; but is still the best thing about it. Still, the inclusion of these new characters highlights an understandable lack of confidence in the main plot.
As far as I can see there is very little here to entertain any but the youngest of children or those so bewitched by the idea of penguins singing Queen that they can put up with the low quality of the plot.
-
Linda O’Brien |
