Viewed in
2007
Premise
A tribe of singing penguins outcasts an offspring who only wants to dance.
Who should watch
Little kids with nothing better to do.
Thoughts
It was not horrible, but with so many excellent computer-animated family films by Pixar, it would be hard to recommend this.
I appreciated the hard work by the animators to create a realistic Antarctica and its inhabitants. There were numerous wonderfully-rendered lengthy, uninterrupted shots. I also liked Robin Williams' voice work, he was not overwhelmingly annoying and his energy picked the movie up in the middle act.
The biggest flaw was the story. It made no sense (even for a kid movie) and was all over the map, trying to be cute, environmentally-concscious, pop-culture, be yourself morality tale, and musical, all at the same time.
There were plenty of other issues that bugged me. First of all, why singing and dancing penguins? The movie makers have already dated this movie, as if they were riding the coattails of 'March of the Penguins'. Penguins have no legs, so it was very hard to appreciate Savion Glover's motion-captured dancing. Also, we're talking about singing and dancing penguins, what was the purpose of animating realistic animals that do not behave naturally?
In terms of writing, giving characters different accents felt like taking the easy way out to differentiate between characters, and given the stereotypical behaviors given to those characters, it almost felt racist. Lastly, I found the song selection questionable. A lot of songs had questionable lyrics/themes that were replaced ('Let's Talk About Eggs' instead of 'Let's Talk About Sex'), but as a parent, I would feel a bit uncomfortable with my child singing such songs when I know the true meanings. Also, how would I explain to my kids when they learn the real lyrics?
I'm probably this movie more attention than it deserves, but it frustrated me that these animators worked so hard, only to have the movie fall flat because of bad movie making decisions.
What I would change
Animated the animals as a bit more cartoony. Ditched the disturbing environmental penguins-versus-man subplot entirely. Hire someone to write real songs.
