Happy Feet--Take Two

So, I was beginning to feel guilty about being so harsh about a kids' movie. Maybe I had been unfair, due to the bitter, shrivelled, blackened lump of ash that is my heart.

But then! I spoke with my sister-in-law this weekend, and she had also seen Happy Feet with her 10 year old. And she totally hated it! She was appalled, actually, and insulted that there should be such a polemic forced onto a kids' movie. I think she even hated it more than I did.

So, I went over to Rotten Tomatoes to see what the summary judge\ment was--and it looks like it was well loved. Until I started actually reading even just the snippets of the reviews. Sure, they recommended it--I probably would too, as the dancing is fun and the animation is gorgeous. I would add a caveat about the bad storytelling and the hamfisted political message--and so do the critics at RT.

My favorite summary has to be this one by Brian Juergens of Freeze Dried Movies: "More like Environmentally Responsible, Emotionally Resonant, and Sorta Bleak Feet." Or this one from the Village Voice: "Even the wee ones may start to notice something's amiss when the movie's theme goes from 'be yourself" to 'we must regulate the overfishing of the Antarctic oceans.' No, for real."

Other critics have noted that it "lost its way in the approach to the finish line" (James Berardineli, REELREVIEWS) and "colorful, energetic, fast-moving, visually eyepopping and slightly soulless" (Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution).

So, it wasn't just me! And my shrivelled heart!