by Liz Brewster

Created on: January 16, 2007   Last Updated: May 15, 2007

Happy Feet

Happy Feet is the newest animated movie from Village Roadshow Pictures, and Animal Logic Film. It tells the tale of Mumble, a penguin who doesn't quite fit in with the other penguins, so sets off on a journey of acceptance.

According to this movie, Emperor Penguins find their mate by singing to each other with their 'heart song'. All penguins have a heart song and from a young age they are taught to find the song inside themselves. Mumble doesn't have a song. He can't sing at all in fact. But boy can he tap dance. It seems this isn't a suitable activity for a penguin, so he cast aside by the er flock (What's a group of penguins called!?) To make matters worse, Mumble looks different to the other penguins too - he never grew up; he is forever destined to look like a big chick - not shedding the grey baby feathers or growing his adult face.

While his own kind look down on the tap dancing, Mumble meets some other penguins who appreciate his talent, and he teams up with them (I don't know for sure what kind of penguins these are meant to be, but they are much smaller than the Emperor Penguins - possibly they are 'crested penguins').

All the while this has been going on, the number of fish in the sea has been getting less and less, and the penguins are starting to starve. Mumble decides that if only he could find out where the fish are going, his group would accept him again. The journey he sets out on takes him across vast expanses of lonely arctic (his five little penguin friends in tow), across the dreaded Elephant Seal territory and ultimately, half way around the world into a zoo. Will he get back home again? Can he find out whose been taking the fish, and stop them before it's too late? Will he get the girl? You'll have to wait and see.

On the whole, this movie is very factually accurate. Obviously not the singing, and the dancing, but the rest seems right - the male looks after the eggs, the adult and baby penguins look like they should, the animated penguins move right, both on land and in the sea, and the scale is about right. It's questionable when some Killer Whales come into the story, but let's just say there are small whales. Something that isn't right at all is the way the penguins transferred their eggs from the female to the male. Soon after the female has laid it, they are shown rolling them across the snow. This would damn near kill the baby chick inside the egg. Penguins never let their egg touch the floor. But even after we see the egg

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