Traveling Thoughts

For Christmas, I got a Happy Feet penguin, Mumble to be exact.  Mom made him at Build-A-Bear Workshop. 

Penguins are undoubtably my favorite bird which is cool and he’s all soft.  She asked me if I had seen the movie and I said no.  Being such, I had to go see the movie Happy Feet.  I needed some background on Mumble (besides the fact that he had been made especially for me at the mall).

Happy feet is a very cute movie that shows us that differences need to be embraced instead of shunned.  At least, that’s what it says to the adults in the theatre, that and it speaks of eco-politics and how we’re all inter-related, animals and humans and for one to survive we all have to think of each other.  It might also remind those who saw ‘March of the Penguins’ of the same thing except in a more child-like version, ‘March of the Penguins’ meets the 70’s perhaps?

All that aside, Happy Feet is a generally good movie, the music is good, the story speaks a lot, even to the kids (who should be nice to those unlike them because they may learn something cool from them).  It’s an epic adventure of saving the world and one’s self through self-discovery.  It’s a humorous, action packed, thrilling adventure, even a somewhat romantic film.  There’s times when we’re oooohing, times when we’re on the edge of our seats, and times where it feels like we might have just had a heart attack.

The only bad part I think was at the end, where after a long trek to follow a fishing boat, Mumble gets put in a zoo.  It’s quite sad from this point on till the last few moments of the movie and can on some levels overshadow the better parts of the movie, not to mention that it will leave some kids somewhat confused as the point of what’s going on flys over their little heads.

My favorite part was probably the penguins with the Killer Whales.  They had treked so far, and Lovelace was seriously on the edge of death with the soda pop ring things around his neck, when it looks like they’re going to die while the killer whales are doing this beautiful (almost dance like) thing and throwing Mumble and Lovelace back and forth.  It was cool, of all the enemies that Mumble encounters (penguin eating bird, seal, whale) it was the best.  And they were the only one that didn’t talk, those whales were.

I give it a 3 out of 5 stars just because of the dark undertones given in the second half of the movie.  It’s not great, but it’s not bad, it’s middle of the road.  It drives me nuts how screen writers will use children’s films to deliver their messages…