Winter Break

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Thank you for your comments and support throughout Fall Semester 2006.

Quotation of the [whenever we have good quotations to post]: Vo. 2

"No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow."

--Alice Walker

"Let me tell something to you." Happy Feet Lives Up to the Hype: by Chris Garton

Happy Feet, Starring Elijah Wood, Robin Williams, Brittany Murphy, Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Hugo Weaving, and Savion Glover. Directed by George Miller.

Who it’s for: Lovers of ‘80s and 90s music, kids of all ages, and those who don’t mind an environmentalist message with their humor.

Who it’s not for: People who did not find themselves laughing during Shrek.

This movie starts out one thing, and ends up something different. This has been done well in other movies. Million Dollar Baby comes to mind. In this movie, however, I feel that either one of the directions it tried to go would have been fine on its own, but when you try to put them together, they get in each others way.

The first half of this movie deals with a young penguin named Mumble (Wood), who, in an unfortunate accident, was dropped onto the ice when he was still an egg, which leads to him being slow to hatch. When he finally does break free of his shell, his dad, Memphis (Jackman) immediately senses that something may not be right with his boy. His feet are constantly moving. “Whatcha doin’ with your feet there, boy? Better stop, people will think it’s strange,” he says. Soon after this, Mumble learns that he has a terrible singing voice. This is the real tragedy, as a penguin’s “heartsong” is what they use to find a mate. Mumble taps out his heartsong with his feet, but his strange ways don’t catch on in the tribe. Without a heartsong, Mumble has no hope of winning the heart of the girl he is smitten with, Gloria. He is shunned by the Emperor penguins, and eventually winds up in the company of “the amigos”, a ragtag group of penguins led by Ramón (Williams).

The movie continues in this vein for a while, and we think that eventually Mumble will convince the tribe to accept him, get the girl, etc. etc. What happens instead is that there is a fish shortage, and Mumble sets off to find the aliens that have been mysteriously abducting birds and putting strange yellow bands on their legs, and asking them to stop taking all the fish. There is a heartfelt environmental message at the core of the second half of the film, and I’m all for environmental messages, but it just doesn’t mesh well with the first half.

The best part of this movie is the music. There’s plenty here for a music lover to laugh at. There are lots of great 80s and 90s hits, with Queen, Prince, and Earth Wind and Fire being represented as well as Elvis Presley. There is also some music influenced by other parts of the globe. The Amigos impart a distinctly Latin flavor to the numbers they sing.

I can’t end this review without mentioning the man behind the Mumble. Elijah Wood may provide the voice, but Mumble’s character really comes out through his feet. It is Savion Glover’s feet we see, captured by the computer, which has even picked up Savion’s habit of practicing while he’s standing still. Savion was a regular on Sesame Street for several years, and has been in films such as Tap with Gregory Hines and Sammy Davis Jr. and Spike Lee’s Bamboozled. I hope he gets enough credit for doing this movie, because in my opinion, he carried it.

I enjoyed myself at this movie, but it seemed like it was struggling to figure out what sort of movie it wanted to be. Should this deter you from going to see it? I hope not. It’s certainly worthwhile. I give it 3.5 out of 5.