[rating:3]

Director: George Miller

Production:  Dr. D Studio, Village Roadshow Prod. Kennedy Miller Mitchell

Writers: George Miller; Warren Coleman, Gary Eck

Cast: Elijah Wood,  Robin Williams, Hank Azaria,  Sofîa Vergara, Brad Pitt,

Matt Damon, Pink, Hugo Weaving, Anthony LaPagllia

Time: 100 min

Rating: PG

Genre: Family/ Animation

Making a movie series has it’s own pros and cons. For one thing, if the first movie is a hit, the second in series automatically gets the veiwers into the hall and thus opens very well.  On the filp side if the second movie fauils to stand up to the first movie, the there is no point making the third.

Here is the tragedy of Happy Feet 2. While the 2006 movie was a spectacular, funny loveable film, Happy Feet 2 seems to be a poor half-brother. After the first movie, the second one titled simply as Happy Feet Two. No long taglines, or explanatory statements. That is because the makers of Happy Feet Two knows very well that this one has every reason to be a bigger hit than the last one.The visuals the effects, the song and Dance, the voice, the artists are all great, yet Happy Feet 2 does not impress.

While the dancing, rapping penguins were a novel and a great thing to watch the first time, the second film opening with a huge song with all the penguins seems to throw the viewers into an uncomfortable corner. With Mumble’s son Erik wanting to stay away from song, and dance, Mumble now has a job to impress his son. What indeed is fantastic is the visuals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bringing back the consciousness of global warming, is the beautiful visual that brings out the wonderful white Antarctic vista with the blue waters and multiple creatures that stay there. sometime it becomes a little Nat-Geo-ish. Still one should not complain about that. One serious high point of fun are the two krills (which I thought to be Shrimps) voiced by Brad Pitt and Matt Damon. Their dialogues are interesting, fun, fast and are the only things that stand out as exciting. But even they cannot do much about the film.

What goes wrong is that the film tries to show too much in too little a time. While we fell in love with Mumble, here Mumble’s role as the central character is shared by the Will and Bill the Krills, The flying Penguin who impresses Erik, Erik himself, Icebergs falling due to global warming, the fight with the humans and other penguin races. Too many and too much. While kids might still love to see talking, moving animals, we grown-ups who actually understand what they are talking about wont be much impressed.

There are some pretty big names in the cast. With the death of Brittany Murphy, we have in here Pink as Gloria and Sofia Vergera as Carmen and Robin Williams. Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman are gone and in is Brad Pitt and Matt Damon.

The songs seem good, but not great. theer are some good foot tapping raps and a few originals. Including Pink seems to be a great idea for the movie. This film will still be a hit, simply because we loved Happy Feet. However it does not or cannot touch the original in terms of fun. Spectacle and 3D wise it is good watc, but without a definite singular story it seems to be like watching an array of disrupted events.

Happy Feet Two is releasing on 17th November in Russia, Thailand and Singapore. 18th November in USA, Canada. 23rd November in Netherlands, 24th in  Greece and Argentina. 25TH in Brazil, Poland,  Estonia & Lithuania. 26th Japan, 30TH Belgium. 1st December in Germany; 2nd December UK, Ireland, Norway, Finland & Armenia. 7th December France, 8th Portugal and 9th in Sweden. 22nd in Hong Kong and Hungary. 19th and 20th January 2012 in Czech Republic and Turkey.For more movies releasing in the end of November click here

Adding to this kids have the Happy Feet Two games developed for Playstation 3, Nintendo 3DS and DS as well as Wii.  Guess Mumble & Co will keep us busy all through the winter.