Happy Feet (2006) Review: Ranking Robin Williams’ Traumatizing Penguins
Is Happy Feet (2006) a good movie?Happy Feet is a wildly uneven, bizarre, but surprisingly interesting 2006 animated musical. Featuring fantastic voice acting from Robin Williams and incredible action sequences, it manages to overcome its traumatizing tonal shifts to earn a respectable spot in our ultimate movie ranking and review.
The Premise: What is Happy Feet About?
Mumble (Elijah Wood) is a young Emperor penguin born with a talent for tap dancing instead of singing, making him an outcast in his colony. Struggling to find acceptance, he embarks on a journey of self-discovery alongside a colorful cast of misfits (Robin Williams).
What Works: A Bizarre, Bold Swing
The first act is basically Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and the jukebox musical format works because the film cleverly explains we are just hearing the penguins' songs "translated". The action sequences feature some of the best camera work in an animated film, and Robin Williams’ narration and voice acting for the misfit penguins is an absolute joy. It skips a standard love story to focus on solving a massive global problem.
What Doesn't Work: The Overfishing PSA
Halfway through, the movie completely loses its mind. It stops being a "be yourself" story and turns into an aggressively on-the-nose overfishing PSA. Mumble swims hundreds of miles, gets tranquilized, and wakes up in a bleak zoo where he hallucinates and repeatedly throws a dead fish at a glass wall while humans watch him like performance art. It is deeply disturbing. All of this is magically resolved when his tap dancing convinces humans to implant a tracker in his spine and stop overfishing.
The Robin Williams Ranking & Performance Score
Robin Williams Performance Score:RETIRED Out of respect for Robin's battle with undiagnosed Lewy Body Dementia, we have officially retired our performance score rating.
Good Mourning Robin Ranking: In our ranking, it sits just above Toys. It looks like it's for babies, but casually traumatizes you, feeling like a weird 80s kids' movie.
FAQ: Happy Feet (2006) Movie
Who did Robin Williams voice in Happy Feet? He voiced multiple characters, including Ramón, the leader of the Amigos (the supportive misfit penguins), and Lovelace, providing the film's joyful narration.
Why is Happy Feet considered a weird movie? Halfway through, the lighthearted musical turns into a dark environmental PSA about overfishing, featuring scenes of animal captivity, hallucinations, and mental breakdowns.
How does Happy Feet rank? In our review, we praise it for taking massive, weird risks and featuring incredible camera work, placing it higher than you might expect.
