Review of:Happy Feet (2006)
Director:George Miller
Rating:PG for some mild peril and rude humor.
Starring:Elijah Wood, Robin Williams, Brittany Murphy, Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman
I was excited the first time that I saw my daughter dancing along with the little penguin during the Happy Feet commercial, and I immediately put it on my “to see list”. The record of accomplishment with animated features usually has a good moral meaning, saddled alongside a lot of laughing. I know I am going against popular demand but I feel that Happy Feet does not jive with that formula. If I was alone in my summation I probably would not write about what I am feeling about this film, but others that viewed the movie with me confirmed my own suspicions. This film is a veiled attack against religion.
If you have not seen the film Directed by George Miller (Babe: Pig in the City) then let me educate you for a minute. In the world of the Emperor penguins, they all have a song. It is this song that helps them to get a mate, and places them in their category in this world. Mumbles, just happens to be born without a song, expressing himself instead through dancing. This does not jive with the majority of society as a whole. Mumbles (Elijah Woods) is told to suppress his dancing by his father Memphis (Hugh Jackman), and try to be like the other penguins. Mumbles grows up trying to suppress his inner joy that he expresses through dance, but eventually is forced to go his own way.
The portion that I have a problem with in this film is its veiled shots at religion and the society that they have built, and it all starts with the introduction of the character Lovelace (voiced by Robin Williams). Lovelace is the penguin that is at the top of the mountaintop so to speak. The parents see the mechanisms behind Lovelace at the very beginning. He is all about the power he holds over the people from his prophesizing. It is a part in the film that might go unnoticed by youngsters since none of my own children knew what I was talking about when I mentioned it. Of course, you would hope that a society would be flexible enough to accept everyone, whatever their fallacies and differences, but this film puts religion in the clothes of the bad guy. Religion, whatever you follow, is a personal thing that shouldn’t be attacked. The film tries to show what is wrong with what the penguins are doing by doing the same thing itself.
If you want to see lively dancing, and have a great time watching the kids go wild I would recommend this film, but if your kids are a little older and you are leading them in a religious direction I’d let this one fly south for the winter.
