Happy Feet Two ~ cute, a bit long, and not entirely our fault this time.

Remember those adorable singing and dancing Emperor penguins who were in danger last time because we (humans) were overfishing the seas? Well those cuties are in trouble again, more or less because of Global Warning which people like to point at us and say we’re causing, but let’s get past that, and the fact that man is a carnivore and if you inject intelligence into animals they wouldn’t understand why they’re our victims.  Whew!! Guilt trip over.

Mumble (the voice of Elijah Wood), the dancing awesomeness of the first movie is a proud daddy to Erik, a shy and different penguin. Ramon (Robin Williams) is tired of being treated badly because he’s different (not an Emperor penguin) and heads back to his homeland with the rebellious Erik and friends following him. Lovelace, (also Robin Williams) has found a new worship idol, a Puffin named Sven who is mistaken for a different kind of penguin, and idolized because he can fly.

The Emperor penguins become endangered when an iceberg traps them inside an inescapable chasm and it’s up to Mumble, Erik, and the others to rescue them (even the human’s can’t undo this one).

 

There’s also a very fun side story of Will the Krill (voice by Brad Pitt) and Bill the Krill (voice by Matt Damon), tired of going with the flow, Will wants to evolve higher up the food chain.

It’s a whole” circle of life” message which movie makes fumble over as they try to explain how carnivores and herbivores coexist in the world and parts of the movie were a bit long for my 4 and 2 year olds. I noticed at that point a lot of other kids in the theater were getting bored as well so if you’re taking one, keep that in mind.

This does bring up a personal beef I have with the new movie trend, 3D. I don’t know about your kids, but mine absolutely HATE wearing the glasses for long. They don’t like the idea that when they look to the side it goes dark and I imagine it irritates their nose and ears after a bit. So if your kids are like mine, avoid the 3D.

Anyway, it’s a kid’s movie, so you know there’s a happy ending (no spoiler there). The movie promotes keeping your promises, not treating people bad because they’re different, and how every hand (or flipper) can make a difference. I will warn you, Erik’s talent is that he sings opera. A lot of the kids in the theater didn’t quite get into this, so you may want to be prepared for it as well.

I wish there was more Robin Williams in this movie, but as I said, the story was a bit long as it was.

So if you’re a movie on Thanksgiving kind of family, go see it.