Great movie that looks amazing in HD! First of all, this is simply a great movie. The narrative is brought to life with humor, action, important life lessons, and conservational commentary. The voice actors all give 5-star performances and the animation is incredible.But, this being the Blu-ray disc, I’m going to focus on the picture and sound.The animation by itself is simply breath-taking; easily one of, if not the best looking CGI feature to date. But in HD, it’s brought to life even further. Every feather on the penguins is apparent, every flake of snow falling through the air and I’d almost go so far as to say every molecule of water! This is the best looking animated feature you can get on Blu-ray now. It’s definitely the show-off piece when people ask “How much better does HD look?”. The leopard seal was particularly mind-blowing to me.Another hook is the sound. While I wouldn’t say this is the best sounding movie on Blu-ray, it definitely puts sound to good use and ranks pretty high. All five channels are used when appropriate, but Happy Feet does not utilize them as much as other films. Still, crank up the sound and the action scenes will blow you away.All in all, this is an excellent movie made even better on Blu-ray. At this time, this is the Blu-ray disc to own for giving people lessons about HD.
An objective look at a polar-izing movie. South polar-izing in this case, but it’s hard to miss the fact that some people really love this movie and some really…well…don’t.I just saw this movie twice over the past three days, and here’s my take on it, with the upsides and the downsides.The upsides were:The animation technology! Some of the animation, especially the backgrounds, was drop dead gorgeous. I don’t even have HD, and I was mesmerized by how beautifully done some parts of this movie were.The misfit becomes a hero. It hit sort of close to home for my wife and I because we have a special needs child and have often felt like Memphis and Norma Jean. What went wrong? We sigh a lot and wonder what will become of him. I quietly hope he will develop some great talent some day. We’ll see.An environmental message that wasn’t too heavy handed. The humans are not presented as evil, just as being who didn’t know what they were doing. Once they discovered the penguins, they helped them out. At least this movie didn’t stoop to the now very tired “man is bad” cliche message.Interesting symbology. The “Memphis” character was obviously Elvis, and Norma Jean was Marilyn Monroe? The two icons of the 1950′s give birth to a misfit who revolutionalizes music among a sort of authoritarian theocratic paternal oligarchy. Is this supposed to be something like what happened when rock ‘n roll took America by storm in the late 1950′s and early 60′s? The fundamentalists preached against rock ‘n roll, and the kids just wanted to have fun.The music itself. I found it varied and rather enjoyable. I’ve never liked that “Somebody to Love” song by Queen, but I genuinely enjoyed the way it was rendered by the penguin choir.Finally, extrapolating on the fact that penguin couples can identify each other out of the masses of penguins because each has a unique call. This I assume was the inspiration for the idea that penguins mate when they find “their song”.Now the downsides:I found the adult penguin characters to be designed in a way that didn’t make them particularly endearing to look at. I thought the penguins in Surf’s Up (which anyone who likes this movie should see too; it’s brilliant) were designed to look more fun and loveable. The hint of breasts on the female penguins just made them look sort of weird.One dimensional stereotype characters. There’s the overbearing authoritarian fundamentalists, the holy roller preacher, the “five amigo” wise guys, the skua bird gang, etc. There just wasn’t much depth anywhere in the character department.Very little genuine humor. A lot of what was supposed to be humor seemed forced, Disney Style. I was entertained throughout the movie, but I only really laughed two or three times.And, one big helping of subliminal vulgarity. I read it elsewhere and so out of curiosity I freeze framed through the sequence where Gloria and Happy Feet emerge from their first swim and tumble through the snow, and yes it lookes like they went through the catalogue of sexual positions. That was crass, but then this movie is rated PG for a reason. I mean, what parent would think that a fuzzy little cute baby penguin on all the artwork would mean that they should allow their young children see it? Who would get that idea anyway?So, a solid three stars for a movie that pretends to be for the little ones but richly deserves a PG rating and perhaps PG-13. Now, my happy keys gotta stop clickin’. Tippity tippity tap tap click!
Happy Feet ROCKS! I’m 38 year old man, and all I have to say is that this movie spoke to me. Warner brothers is likely to get my money at least a couple more times before it leaves the theater and then again when it comes to DVD. I’m not going to expose plot points or anything like that you can read other reviews for that stuff. I’m more putting this here for the folks that are reading their own ideas into what they saw when they saw this movie. if your looking for certain things and then interpret those things a certain way, you’re going to find them, good and bad. there’s nothing wrong with and environmental message. we as humans are the top of the food chain, so to speak, but we sure don’t act that way most of time. it is our responsibility to conserve, save and share this planet, be it with penguins or otherwise. we share this earth with a million other beautiful creatures. it’s not just ours, it’s theirs too, they live here too, they’re not alien beings taking up our space, they were put here same as you and me, earthlings. as far as folks reading in religious, racial, sexual etc., stereotypes and otherwise, go ahead and check any of the latest pixar(no knock to pixar, just an example) and you’ll find the same. as far it not all being for kids, go ahead and check out some old tom and jerry, there’s about 20 times more violence in one 3 minute cartoon than in Happy Feet. Yes there are some scary moments but that’s where the movie gives you a dose of reality as any one of you who have seen march of the penguins knows. If you think they’re (WB) going to let a silly thing getting eaten get in the way of our hero saving the day, then you might as well walk out. Sure there are few sad moments too, but any of you seen Bambi and Finding Nemo? Hey man I’m a big cry baby myself. the biggest message I found in Happy Feet was that there’s nothing wrong with being different and pursuing your own thing, that one thing just might end up saving the world one day, maybe not the whole world, but maybe your world. That’s another cool thing about this movie, in spite of all the hard times Mumble is handed for being different, he doesn’t back down for a second, misfit or not, he stays true to what he feels inside, if that’s not being cool, then I don’t know what is. So for all of you knocking this great movie with a great message, let’s just calm down a bit and take it for what it is, some great family entertainment. if you take your kids and choose to explain certain items about the movie a certain way, that’s on you, not Warner brothers. remember, if you look for bad, you’re going to find bad. I find most movies to be up for ones own interpretation anyway and not all are going to walk away with the same experience. if you must go ahead and ask the folks at WB if they were actually tryting to get a certain point across that you found objectionable about Happy Feet. The music is great, the dancing is great, and the baby penguins couldn’t more adorable. HAPPY FEET ROCKS!
Great movie that looks amazing in HD! First of all, this is simply a great movie. The narrative is brought to life with humor, action, important life lessons, and conservational commentary. The voice actors all give 5-star performances and the animation is incredible.But, this being the Blu-ray disc, I’m going to focus on the picture and sound.The animation by itself is simply breath-taking; easily one of, if not the best looking CGI feature to date. But in HD, it’s brought to life even further. Every feather on the penguins is apparent, every flake of snow falling through the air and I’d almost go so far as to say every molecule of water! This is the best looking animated feature you can get on Blu-ray now. It’s definitely the show-off piece when people ask “How much better does HD look?”. The leopard seal was particularly mind-blowing to me.Another hook is the sound. While I wouldn’t say this is the best sounding movie on Blu-ray, it definitely puts sound to good use and ranks pretty high. All five channels are used when appropriate, but Happy Feet does not utilize them as much as other films. Still, crank up the sound and the action scenes will blow you away.All in all, this is an excellent movie made even better on Blu-ray. At this time, this is the Blu-ray disc to own for giving people lessons about HD.
An objective look at a polar-izing movie. South polar-izing in this case, but it’s hard to miss the fact that some people really love this movie and some really…well…don’t.I just saw this movie twice over the past three days, and here’s my take on it, with the upsides and the downsides.The upsides were:The animation technology! Some of the animation, especially the backgrounds, was drop dead gorgeous. I don’t even have HD, and I was mesmerized by how beautifully done some parts of this movie were.The misfit becomes a hero. It hit sort of close to home for my wife and I because we have a special needs child and have often felt like Memphis and Norma Jean. What went wrong? We sigh a lot and wonder what will become of him. I quietly hope he will develop some great talent some day. We’ll see.An environmental message that wasn’t too heavy handed. The humans are not presented as evil, just as being who didn’t know what they were doing. Once they discovered the penguins, they helped them out. At least this movie didn’t stoop to the now very tired “man is bad” cliche message.Interesting symbology. The “Memphis” character was obviously Elvis, and Norma Jean was Marilyn Monroe? The two icons of the 1950′s give birth to a misfit who revolutionalizes music among a sort of authoritarian theocratic paternal oligarchy. Is this supposed to be something like what happened when rock ‘n roll took America by storm in the late 1950′s and early 60′s? The fundamentalists preached against rock ‘n roll, and the kids just wanted to have fun.The music itself. I found it varied and rather enjoyable. I’ve never liked that “Somebody to Love” song by Queen, but I genuinely enjoyed the way it was rendered by the penguin choir.Finally, extrapolating on the fact that penguin couples can identify each other out of the masses of penguins because each has a unique call. This I assume was the inspiration for the idea that penguins mate when they find “their song”.Now the downsides:I found the adult penguin characters to be designed in a way that didn’t make them particularly endearing to look at. I thought the penguins in Surf’s Up (which anyone who likes this movie should see too; it’s brilliant) were designed to look more fun and loveable. The hint of breasts on the female penguins just made them look sort of weird.One dimensional stereotype characters. There’s the overbearing authoritarian fundamentalists, the holy roller preacher, the “five amigo” wise guys, the skua bird gang, etc. There just wasn’t much depth anywhere in the character department.Very little genuine humor. A lot of what was supposed to be humor seemed forced, Disney Style. I was entertained throughout the movie, but I only really laughed two or three times.And, one big helping of subliminal vulgarity. I read it elsewhere and so out of curiosity I freeze framed through the sequence where Gloria and Happy Feet emerge from their first swim and tumble through the snow, and yes it lookes like they went through the catalogue of sexual positions. That was crass, but then this movie is rated PG for a reason. I mean, what parent would think that a fuzzy little cute baby penguin on all the artwork would mean that they should allow their young children see it? Who would get that idea anyway?So, a solid three stars for a movie that pretends to be for the little ones but richly deserves a PG rating and perhaps PG-13. Now, my happy keys gotta stop clickin’. Tippity tippity tap tap click!
Happy Feet ROCKS! I’m 38 year old man, and all I have to say is that this movie spoke to me. Warner brothers is likely to get my money at least a couple more times before it leaves the theater and then again when it comes to DVD. I’m not going to expose plot points or anything like that you can read other reviews for that stuff. I’m more putting this here for the folks that are reading their own ideas into what they saw when they saw this movie. if your looking for certain things and then interpret those things a certain way, you’re going to find them, good and bad. there’s nothing wrong with and environmental message. we as humans are the top of the food chain, so to speak, but we sure don’t act that way most of time. it is our responsibility to conserve, save and share this planet, be it with penguins or otherwise. we share this earth with a million other beautiful creatures. it’s not just ours, it’s theirs too, they live here too, they’re not alien beings taking up our space, they were put here same as you and me, earthlings. as far as folks reading in religious, racial, sexual etc., stereotypes and otherwise, go ahead and check any of the latest pixar(no knock to pixar, just an example) and you’ll find the same. as far it not all being for kids, go ahead and check out some old tom and jerry, there’s about 20 times more violence in one 3 minute cartoon than in Happy Feet. Yes there are some scary moments but that’s where the movie gives you a dose of reality as any one of you who have seen march of the penguins knows. If you think they’re (WB) going to let a silly thing getting eaten get in the way of our hero saving the day, then you might as well walk out. Sure there are few sad moments too, but any of you seen Bambi and Finding Nemo? Hey man I’m a big cry baby myself. the biggest message I found in Happy Feet was that there’s nothing wrong with being different and pursuing your own thing, that one thing just might end up saving the world one day, maybe not the whole world, but maybe your world. That’s another cool thing about this movie, in spite of all the hard times Mumble is handed for being different, he doesn’t back down for a second, misfit or not, he stays true to what he feels inside, if that’s not being cool, then I don’t know what is. So for all of you knocking this great movie with a great message, let’s just calm down a bit and take it for what it is, some great family entertainment. if you take your kids and choose to explain certain items about the movie a certain way, that’s on you, not Warner brothers. remember, if you look for bad, you’re going to find bad. I find most movies to be up for ones own interpretation anyway and not all are going to walk away with the same experience. if you must go ahead and ask the folks at WB if they were actually tryting to get a certain point across that you found objectionable about Happy Feet. The music is great, the dancing is great, and the baby penguins couldn’t more adorable. HAPPY FEET ROCKS!