Happy Feet
I saw the movie Happy Feet Saturday evening and thought I’d write a review.
Just discovered that there’s no need to. Mel already wrote what I wanted to say.
In short:
The songs aren’t appropriate for children, though in all honesty seeing the movie once won’t make the overly sexual lyrics stick in a kid’s head it isn’t something you’d want them watching over and over again.
About 2/3rds the way through the movie we learn that humans are responsible for the penguins starving. We also learn that religion is stupid and all religious leaders are fakes.
Oh, and the only way to solve a problem is to have the United Nations fix it. No kid will actually pick that message up, but the UN logo is presented in the movie in such a way that it would sink in subliminally.
The long:
I’d say about 80% of the movie is “kid safe” but the other 20% isn’t. That pretty much ruins it as a kid’s movie. It’s a funny movie with plenty of laughs for the kids in there, but the message is too dismal and one sided. It would have only taken 2 minutes to actually create a debate and compromise solution in the movie explaining that human beings need to harvest responsibily. That would teach the children a decent lesson on conservation. Instead they run with a whole-hog ban mindset.
Another issue was the action. My girlfriend’s four year old niece and 6 year old nephew were with us and some of the action was a bit too intense for the four year old. She had to look away and hug my girlfriend. They could have been much shorter and much less dramatic. For instance, the orcas (killer whales) going after the penguins. Way too long, and didn’t do much for the plot. Instead it would have been much better, and more educational, if they had actually showed how orcas hunt with realistic outcomes. I caught something a month or so ago about them working as a team to knock seals off ice floats as a team. They’d get 3 abreast, swim real fast as the ice float, go under it, and create a wave that knocked the seal off the float to eat it. The interesting part about the article is that they didn’t eat the seal in question: they were just showing the younger ones how you do it.
Educational, entertaining, somewhat suspsensful, and it lets the kids know that orcas aren’t evil killing beasts all the time. That’s got some value to it no matter what your political leanings. I normally wouldn’t harp on a movie for failing to provide education when they can, but kids will be coming away from this movie thinking that the killer whales Sea-World are nothing but killers that’ll eat them in a second.
That and eating fish is starving the penguins.
Nice movie, but you probably won’t want to buy it on DVD and you would do best to sit your kids down and actually talk about the issues presented.