HAPPY FEET 2

title: HAPPY FEET 2
year: 2011
voices: Robin Williams, Elijah Wood, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon
rating: **

There’s a wee bit of actual adventure as a few brave penguins, when they’re not singing popular pop tunes and dancing, venture off to save their world – these are the best parts of the movie. And although the tunes are the purpose for a musical involving penguins, the songs and the frolicking get downright annoying. Our new hero is the son of Mumble and Gloria, Erik... with a voice so cutesy you’ll want to squeeze the cheeks of the theater screen (or else punch the heck out of it). He lacks confidence and can’t dance, but these are the least of his problems. The ice caps are melting (inverted political message) and the penguin city is trapped – and it’s up to Mumble and Erik to save the day. Peripheral characters include a flying penguin who’s become a counterfeit messiah to the race and his flamboyant spokesman: both part of a backstory weird enough to confuse even Rod Serling’s children. And beneath the water... involving the best special effects, especially in 3D whenever whales appear... are two whining Krill (Brad Pitt and Matt Damon, sounding like themselves) who yearn to be independent from the vast herd – eventually realizing they might be headed for Brokeback Mountain. It’s Robin Williams’s mohawked underdog penguin Ramon who makes the movie; it’s too bad he’s hardly in it at all. What's needed is a fuller story and more places to go. Although young kids... really, really young kids... will enjoy themselves.