Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Animated Feature 2006

The Contenders:

Cars
Happy Feet (winner)
Monster House

Unhappy Audience

Film: Happy Feet
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on laptop.

The shit I do for this website. I grabbed Happy Feet off the shelf at the library today specifically because this was a film that I was dreading. I’ve seen it before and I didn’t like it the first time through. All I remember was a lot of breathy singing and a lot of dancing penguins. Now that I’ve watched it again, the reality is a lot of breathy singing and dancing penguins. This is exactly the worst type of film made for children or a “family” audience. There’s a lot of pandering to kids here, a slap-in-the-face level couple of messages, and nothing deeper than the barest, most obvious, surface-level story. Adults entertained by this sort of thing are the same sort of people who go to amusement parks to see the shows instead of go on the rides. It overdoses on the cute rather than actually trying to do something interesting. Like I said, the shit I do for this website.

In the world of emperor penguins, the goal is always to find something called a “heartsong.” When they are of the right age, the penguins wander around singing at each other until they find someone else singing the same song, or something, and they mate for life. This, such as it is, happens to Norma Jean (Nicole Kidman) and Memphis (Hugh Jackman). They produce an egg, which results in Mumble (Elijah Wood). In what will certainly become the entire main point of the movie, it is soon discovered that Mumble is unable to sing but has a natural penchant for tap dancing.