Five years ago, the world thrilled – and chilled – to the Oscar winning sight of dancing, singing penguins as young Mumble, believed to have brought bad luck by his love of tap dancing and inability to sing, was exiled from the Emperor penguin colony, finally finding his heartsong and saving the others from starvation.
Fast forward to the sequel and Mumble (Elijah Wood) is now all grown up, the leader of the colony and, with mate Gloria (P!ink, replacing the late Brittany Murphy), proud father to a young fluffy son, Erik (Ava Acres). Well, maybe not quite that proud. Like his dad, Erik can’t sing. Unfortunately, he can’t dance either. Which makes him a figure of fun when he tries and falls flat on his face.
Embarrassed after the latest humiliation, Erik, along with two chums, decides to follow Latin lover Ramon (Robin Williams) who, realising he’ll never find romance among the Emperors, is heading back to his own kind.
Discovering Erik’s gone missing, Mumble sets off in search, finally tracking him to the Adelie colony only to find his son hero worshipping Sven (Hank Azaria) who, apparently some kind of rare Swedish breed (he’s really a Puffin but he’s not letting on) , possesses what all other penguins lack; the ability to fly. He also has a past history with wacky sweater-wearing Adelie leader Lovelace (Robin Williams, again) and, spouting lines like “if you want it, you must will it. If you will it, it will be yours”, has become the clan’s resident self-help guru.
Eventually persuading Erik to return home, Mumble and the three kids set off, encountering grumpy Australian accented elephant seal Bryan along the way, only to find that, in their absence, a large chunk of the Antarctic shelf has broken off, trapping the Emperors in a snowy valley surrounded by ice mountains with no way out and no way to get food.
The only way Mumble can get hope to rescue them is by calling on the help of Lovelace and Bryan, a task in which little Erik both realises just how heroic his father is and finally finds his own special talent to help save the day.
Like the first film, it’s extremely colourful, well animated and packed with scenes of hundreds of penguins singing and dancing in unison. Unfortunately, while it’s hard not to go ‘oooh’ and ‘aaah’ at the sight of the fluffy Erik, the sequel just doesn’t have the same charm. The environmental concerns and the messages about having to work together to succeed and how everyone’s important, no matter how small they seem, are to be applauded, but getting there involves a very repetitive, episodic and seemingly random plot that may well start to bore and confuse younger audiences .
There’s also a whole other sub-plot involving Will and Bill (voiced by Brad Pitt and Matt Damon), two shrimp-like krill who, shocked into existential crisis to discover their only purpose in life is to be bottom of the food chain, set out to ‘evolve’ and forge a new identity away from the crustacean swarm.
Like all the underwater scenes, they’re beautifully animated, but they also make the film drag and, while kids might be amused at the sight of Will trying to eat a seal, the philosophical dialogue will pass over right over their heads while the terrible puns (‘goodbye krill world’, ‘I’m one in a krillion’) will make grown ups wince.
There are of course, breathtaking moments. The opening sequence of the penguins singing and dancing e masse to a mix of Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation and Chaka Khan’s Ain’t Nobody is rousing stuff, as is the climactic version of Under Pressure while Gloria’s anthemic solo, Bridge Of Light, is inspirational stuff. And when a certain character suddenly bursts into a classic aria from Puccini’s Tosca (albeit with new lyrics), mums and dads might feel a lump in their throat. But with the bits in between short on sparkle, emotion and humour, these happy feet fall a little flat.
The film is preceded by I Tawt I Taw A Puddy Tat, a new animated Sylvester and TweetyPie short using the original Mel Blanc song.
BBFC Guidance: Contains mild threat and fight scenes.
LGWTC Guidance: Penguins still have the cute factor and young ‘uns will enjoy the antics, but while this will dance to the top of the box office it doesn’t have the moves to make it a classic like the original.