Happy Feet 2

This afternoon, at 4:10 to be exact, I went to see Happy Feet 2 with my mom, cousin, and uncle. I never saw the first one and arrived at the theatre wondering whether or not I would be able to understand the movie without having prior watched the prequel. No worries, this movie set itself up very well and you can easily follow along even without having viewed the original Happy Feet. Overall, I enjoyed the movie. However, it was a little hard for me to accept the technique of combining live-action with animation. It was a let down to see actors combined with fantastically animated penguins and extremely realistic looking elephant seals.

I enjoyed the message as well. I don't want to ruin the movie for anyone, but I'm sure all of you can guess that there is dancing involved which helps save someone (or someones...**cough cough**) from disaster and remove them from the conflict within the movie. Yet, outside of the obvious was the message that it's okay to be different and that your niche doesn't have to match that of everyone else's.

One interesting message I picked up from the movie was the emphasis on the importance of the environment. There were a few scenes in the movie in which the arctic was shown melting and the effects of these drastic events on the animals in the area. Although this was the case, humans were depicted as being the heroes at the beginning, but towards the end (each and every time they were introduced in the movie) they were shown as not living up to expectations and as failures who left without finishing the job, therefore transitioning into figures who were unable to offer any help leading them to becoming the "bad guys".

I'm glad I went to the movie, yet, it slightly reminded me of a mixture between Finding Nemo and The Lion King. Finding Nemo because Erik, the young penguin who is confused about his purpose in life has a relationship with his father that pans out in an extremely similar manner as does Marlin's and Nemo's relationship. It only reminded me of the Lion King because the theme that everything in life is interconnected was repeatedly brought back up again (the circle of life).

And of course I stayed through the credits and was so very very excited to see Phillip Hall's name under "Animators" :)