Animated adolescent angst comes home to roost in Antarctica when cute but clueless flipper Mumbles (voiced by Elijah Wood) demonstrates he's got no toones but dances like Fred Astaire.
Animal whisperer George Miller follows up on his acutely understated “Babe” with a high-power CGI tour-de-force that combines the rollicking pratfalls and hair-breadth details of last years ‘King-Kong’ and ‘Madagascar’ with his still unequaled all-out action sequences of ‘Mad Max’ and ‘Road Warrior.’
Although singing might not seem a vital tool in a penguin’s shed, it is the calling card for mating, or at least finding one’s mate among the thousands at the rookery. But let’s not get too technical here. The point is; no heartsong, no boom-boom, no egg passing, no little Mumbles.
In what passes for irony, Mumbles’ love interest Gloria (Brittany Murphy) sings like a rock star, which is not too surprising since she is one as evidenced by her recent Billboard hit “Faster Kill Pussycat” with Paul Oakenfeld.
So there you have it---boy emasculated before his time meets fine foxy chick perfect for egg-passing but they can’t make it because he can’t sing.
OK, it’s not Romeo and Juliet, but stay with me here....
As it turns out, and you doubtlessly know this already, although Mumbles sings like a skateboard, he dances like Savion Glover. Which is no surprise since Glover, the super-hoofer from “Bring in ‘Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk” penned his moves and then danced them for the super-computer to motion-capture and electronically transfer to Mumbles.
Multiply that by a tennis court sized bunch of dancers, transfer it to a similar number of animated penguins, multiply that by about 400 and Presto!---20,000 penguins dancing like Glover on an iceberg in Antarctica.
Am I going too fast? It’s like ground control at Houston landing both Mars Rovers at once while singing the Beach Boys “Good Vibrations” in four part harmony. Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?
But enough technology. Back at the ice floe, Mumbles is in trouble.
The senile but powerful penguin tribal elders are blaming his lack of voice and tapping tendencies for a mysterious and deadly lack of fish that is turning the flock from fat and sassy to lean and mean. The elders are not only mean, but stupid.
So we have young love thwarted by physical chance and by mean and stupid adults with no vision but lots of power. Not only that, but the mean and stupid adults are making decisions that kill people through logic that makes no sense and appeals only to the dumbest but most powerful in the clan.
No, this is not the White House, this is Antarctica, stay with me here....
Self-exiling himself from his family and lover, Mumbles takes the journey of a lifetime to find out what, or who, is killing the fish that support his nation.
No, it’s not Donald Rumsfeld.
But here’s a clue, it has to do with the six-pack plastic ring that guru penguin Lovelace has worn like a necklace ever since it appeared magically around his neck while he was exploring an abandoned fish processing site on the edge of the Antarctic.
So Mumbles sets out with Latino penguin Ramon and love guru Lovelace as they strike out on a ‘Lord of the Rings’ journey of a different sort. Nailing attitude that won’t quit with the voices of Ramon the Latino lover and Lovelace the scattered leader, Williams makes up nearly all the lost yardage from his recent debacle ‘Man of the Year.’
Unfortunately for Wood, he is the straight man in this flick and appears to have been mainly instructed to let Williams carry the ball in the laugh department.
Nicole Kidman voices Mumbles’ kindly but powerless mom and Hugh Jackman does Mumbles’ kindly but gutless pop. More calls to revolution directed to the six year olds in the audience.
After ‘Babe,’ director Miller is back at it again, stirring up trouble in the veiled allegory of animated fantasy. The elders are insane, the parents are eviscerated and so it’s up to the kids. Strike out and find your voice, your dance, or whatever it is that floats your floe and passes your egg.
First rate entertainment for the whole family as long as they are 11 years and younger. Teenagers are going to find it hard to buy Mumbles’ character (nobody is that dense) and Elijah Wood’s mealy-mouthed lines.
But everyone will enjoy the action sequences of crashing glaciers and snow and underwater contrails combined with the sweeping animated vistas of mountains. Due to the frequently airborne point of view and the great chase scenes, this movie will be awesome in IMAX.
Opens wide USA November 17. MPAA: Rated PG for some mild peril and rude humor.
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