Dir. George Miller
Writ. George Miller, Warren Coleman, John Collee, Judy Morris
Act. Hugh Jackman, Elijah Wood, Brittany Murphy, Robin Williams, Nicole Kidman

Okay, can someone tell me why this movie was made? It's not horrible, but I guess I don't understand the necessity of making a kids movie based on a documentary about a bunch of penguins in the Antarctic. Of course, what makes this movie particularly horrible for me is that the beginning and middle of the movie has almost non stop singing, which annoys me, very much. It also takes about an hour for the movie to get to the point of the story, which turns out to be a lesson on saving the environment. Anyway, half of the movie is made for children who are amused at silly cartoons and the other half of the movie is made for adults who are unaware of some of the basic environmental problems on the planet…..Yeah!

Mumble, voiced by Elijah Wood (LOTR: Return of the King,) is an Emperor Penguin who is born with no ability to sing. This is bad because Emperor Penguins find their mates by being attracted to another's song. However, he can tap dance like Fred Astaire, which means bupkis. Especially since the elders, lead by Noah, voiced by Hugo Weaving (V for Vendetta,) are a superstitious lot, they believe that Mumble is one of reasons why the Gods are angry at them and are taking their food supply, fish, away from them. Mumble gets kicked out of the Emperor Penguin clan and decides to find out the real reason why the food is disappearing. When he finds out that 'aliens' (that would be us humans) are taking their fish supply, he tries to stop them and heads after the 'alien ships' or fishing vessels. He doesn't make it and washes up on the coast of South Africa or Brazil and ends up getting sent to a Zoo in Florida. After months of hopelessness, he starts to dance for a little girl and through his dancing he is able to communicate that the fishing in the Antarctic is killing off all of the animals. Neat, huh?

There are two messages in the movie. It's ok to be different because being different might just save your ass, and the other one is we humans are killing the planet. What I mean by that is, by over fishing we are killing off other animals and then the domino effect ensues.

So I go back to my original question, why did we need to make this movie? It doesn't break new ground in the world of being different is good and it certainly doesn't offer any solutions to the environmental problem. I guess it's a cute movie for the kids but it still seems to be a waste.

I didn't find anything spectacular about the voiceovers, nobody was horrible but nobody was outstanding. I guess the biggest surprise for me was that the director was able to keep Robin Williams from stealing the spotlight even though he was three characters in the movie. I do like the fact that the Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin was a voice in the movie. I don't know why I like it, I just do. Elijah Wood was fine and I will say that if that was Brittany Murphy singing in the movie, then the woman has a beautiful voice. Hugh Jackman did a great job of not sounding like Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman can scratch off animated movies of her list of movies she should be working on. It is getting very bleak for her.

I would be remiss if I did not make a comment about the environmental issue. I agree with the director and screenwriter of the movie that something has to be done with the over fishing of the ocean's. However, here's the problem, this planet already has way too many humans on it to sustain life and thanks to the countries in Central and South Asia and our neighbors to the south, little humans are being born every day and you have to feed them someway. I would mention Africa but thankfully that continent is still full of disease, famine, and war to control the population. I know its an a**hole thing to say but lets face it, every other movie star is running around the country trying to save less fortunate people and if they succeed, where are we going to put all of them. Are these same Hollywood types going to run around India and every Muslim country in the world and our good neighbors to the south and explain the greatness that is birth control? Even if they do, will they listen? Probably not. So do you save the less fortunate or the environment? While you ponder this question, you can wait for this movie to come out on DVD.

Brian - the Naked Gun