I’m back from vacation meaning I had another 16 hours spent on the plane watching movies. This time I got around to another 5 movies. There were a few failures where I just passed out watching two other ones in the middle and caught an incomplete movie so I won’t talk about those. The first movie that I saw going back was a family animation called Happy Feet Two. I don’t know how well Happy Feet was to the public but I enjoyed it for the upbeat music and dancing. I loved it. Despite that, I still had this feeling that Happy Feet Two would be absolute crap as I had no idea how they’d do a follow up on it. I was pleasantly surprised though, as I enjoyed it quite a bit. A great movie to start off my long flight back home.
Happy Feet Two focuses on Mumble (Elijah Wood) and Gloria’s(Pink) son, Erik (Ava Acres) who doesn’t seem to know his place and his talents to find himself in Emperor Penguin world. When he sees Ramon (Robin Williams) running off to find his world again, Erik and his two friends trail behind him and end up meeting Lovelace (Robin Williams) and the Mighty Sven (Hank Azaria). The mighty Sven grows on Erik because he sees the possibility to achieve the impossible if you have the will. Sven is actually a puffin that tricks everyone to believe that he is a penguin that can fly. At the same time, we meet krills that want to escape the food chain and be different with Will the Krill (Brad Pitt) and Bill the Krill (Matt Damon). They form somewhat of a side story. Something in the environment suddenly changes and the Emperor Penguin world shifts lower and all the penguins are now stuck with no food. The only ones outside are Erik and his two friends and Mumble who went out in search for him. With the help of the penguins from Ramon’s world, they face this emergency and try to find a way out that they need everyone to help them out.
Its a pretty simple story. Whats really nice and I think works well for Happy Feet in general is the musical elements. We get upbeat music to match up with penguins dancing and singing through happy and sad times. I’m not saying that we can all live through life and just forget our problems with dancing and singing but I have to say that its help me through a lot of tough times. I think that has a factor on how much I did enjoy the movie. It was just fun. I don’t think its as good as the first one, but it does a pretty good job. I think also another contributing factor to why I enjoyed it was the voices. Everyone is top of the line. Robin Williams did voices for two parts and it had hints of the voice when he did the Genie in Aladdin and I really liked it. As usual, Hank Azaria does a great job also as Sven. Matt Damon and Brad Pitt join in as well for Bill and Will the Krills and they were quite fun to watch and listen to. The only thing was that it seemed that they were trying to ride the popularity of Ice Age and the squirrel side story. Its still entertaining for the Krills to have the stage but at times, it seemed a bit like it was trying hard to make sure it kept the movie in a uplifting mood even when it was meant to be slightly more serious. I wonder if it was really a necessary addition sometimes.
Overall, I did enjoy this movie. It was a very pleasant surprise. Did it give me any laughs? Not really. What it did give me was a fun and musical time with a few heartwarming moments. That was great for the beginning of the flight and it got me ready for the next one. If you enjoyed the first one, I’d expect that you’d find some fun with this one.
Did you see this movie? Enjoyed it? Maybe you enjoyed it more than the first one?
Tranquil Dreams 