Happy Feet 2

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Myself

When George Miller created Babe 2: Pig in the City he won the award for darkest, most traumatising sequel to a children's film ever created. So I'll admit I walked into this film with a little trepidation. Babe 2 scars, even as an adult. Serious nightmare material.

However Happy Feet 2 has so much in common with its predecessor you can, for most practical purposes, treat this write up as a review of both.

Primarily this is advertised as cute little penguins singing horrifying mash-ups of pop tunes and that is indeed what the majority is. However there is always a scarily apocalyptic undertone of impending doom that's unsettling in the extreme. Perhaps it's the juxtaposition of horrific real world dilemmas with singing cartoon animals. In any case, it can be a little jarring but most welcome to think about with things are getting too cutsey. And there are a few genuinely serious moments where I though he was going all Babe 2 again, but he did end up saving some of the characters in mortal danger this time. Perhaps he's mellowed in his old age. But still, it was touch and go for a while there...

The other thing that can be a little jarring but it actually pretty neat is the use of real humans in live action mixed in with the animation. I love that.

And that's just one of the many out-of-left-field decisions that went into the making of this film. While a lot of this is standard stuff it does goes places you couldn't see coming. This time through I'm thinking specifically about Matt Damon and Brad Pitt playing krill that go on an existential journey to try and change their standing in the food chain. Utterly bizarre stuff to deal with in a kids film but it actually ties in nicely to the finale.

What I don't like so much about the finale is the particular voice the new baby penguin finds. For most penguins it's a pop song, or possibly rap, for Mumbles it was tap dancing. But opera? Kids are probably going to find it as hard to sit through as I did.

Animal Logic have really outdone themselves with this film and I doubt 95% of their audience will even realise just what they have accomplished here. The first film was filled with incredibly gorgeous images, their digital rendering of Antarctica. Not only that but they are playing with hundreds of furry/feathered animals and a huge amount of water simulation and atmospherics. This film takes all these elements up a few notches and adds in what I can only describe as elastic scale. Level of detail must be a nightmare when dealing with creatures as big as whales and as small as krill and everything in between all interacting with each other and the camera having to move through and find and frame all of them appropriately. At krill level the detail on the ice and snow and fur looks incredible. And it pulls back all the way to shot of the entire universe. The dynamic changing between these scales in the same shot makes for some awesome 3D too.

So while I can't stand the singing and much of the kiddy humour I do love the unsettling undertones, the bizarre choices and on a technical level this is just staggering. It's very patchy but it holds together ok.