Australian director George Miller’s Happy Feet was one of the surprise pleasures of the 2006 moviegoing year. The story was simple: A young Emperor penguin who has no skill for singing, a necessary skill in wooing a mate, discovers instead that he has a flair for dancing. The picture was fanciful and breezy and, particularly for a big-budget animation feature, showed a wonderful lightness of touch. And it didn’t hurt that Savion Glover choreographed the dance moves of the main character, a chubby, awkward-elegant little guy named Mumble, voiced by Elijah Wood.
Miller, it would seem, has the golden touch when it comes to sequels: In addition to directing Mad Max and The Road Warrior, Miller also gave us one of the finest children’s movies ever made, Babe: Pig in the City, even more inventive, ambitious and delightful than its predecessor — wonderful in its own right — Chris Noonan’s Babe.
But while Happy Feet Two fills the basic requirements of a decent sequel, it doesn’t stretch beyond them. Wood returns as Mumble, now grown and married to his lady love Gloria. (P!nk provides Gloria’s supple, mellifluous speaking and singing voice.) Mumble and Gloria have a son, Erik (Ava Acres), who — get this — can’t dance. Though, as we learn, he can sing. But long before we get to that revelation, Happy Feet Two meanders all over the Antarctic, plotwise: It seems to begin in what could be the middle and heads off into several directions before settling on one. The central drama involves the fact…
Carmen Electra Carol Grow Carrie Underwood Cat Power Catherine Bell Chandra West Charisma Carpenter
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