“Happy Feet” A CG Movie Worthy of Your Marching To The Theaters This Fall
By: Tim - aurora - Dunn
This year has been extremely active on two fronts. The first is the huge deluge of CG movies a couple of them good the rest, well not everybody can be the best. The second is the ripple effect, or in this case shockwave, from last years Oscar winning 'March of the Penguins". So what happens if you mix the two together? You get Warner Brothers "Happy Feet"!
In fact the beginning of "Happy Feet" almost seems to be a CG retelling of "March of the Penguins". It starts out with the trek of Emperor penguins across the storm swept wastes of Antarctica focusing on Memphis (Hugh Jackman) and his mate Norma-Jean (Nicole Kidman) as they lay and tend to their egg through the brutal winter. From here “Happy Feet” takes off on its own as Mumble (Elijah Woods) hatches with a wondrous birth defect, if you will, due to too of a long an exposure to the bitter winter cold. In this Antarctica each penguin is born with a special song, a heart song, and the ability to sing it. Mumble on the other hand has no heart song and can not sing (in this I can relate to poor Mumbles!) Mumble however can dance, and dance with brilliantly animated power.
As in Rudolph, while Mumble has a wondrous unique gift of his own he is treated as a misfit who is not allowed to play and learn with the other penguins. Even his one and only friend, Gloria (Brittany Murphy), who also happens to have the best voice and song(s), has a hard time accepting him.
Eventually Mumble is banished from the community only to find and be befriended by Ramon (Robin Williams) and his small crew happy go lucky penguins. These guys love Mumbles dancing ability and find him to be a role model in many things. Together they take off on an adventure to find out why the fish numbers have been dwindling. Along the way they run into leopard seals, killer whales and worst of all man.
With all the CG movies out this year it seems we have left the infant age of CG animated movies and are now in a healthy adolescent phase. We have the good eggs, the bad eggs (sorry pun intended) and a whole heck of a lot of ho-hums in-between. “Happy Feet” comes very nearly as the last animated venture of the year and as the old adage goes, ‘They saved the best for last!’
There is absolutely nothing ordinary or ho-hum about this movie. A dedicated crew took off to Antarctica to study Antarctica and the emperor penguins and brought all they saw into this movie. It brings Antarctica to life both as a frozen hell, as well as a sparkling ice encrusted paradise. The visuals are simply breathtaking and sometimes so grand as to be overwhelming. The winter storms, aurora shrouded nights, and fantastic open water scenes will open even the most CG jaded heart and mind.
Then there’s the animation. Folks, this is what CG should be about, pushing the limits and providing new air in an already stagnating genre. By now we have all marveled at the battle scenes in Peter Jacksons “The Lord of the Rings” welcome to its CG animated match in “Happy Feet”. There are many scenes with hundreds and even thousands of penguins, marching, moving, and best of all dancing. If for no other reason this should be enough to get every animator and TD out to see this movie. Beyond the crowd scenes the individual animation work is meticulous and extremely well done. These characters, their rigs and their animators behave extremely well under numerous stressful scenes.
The texturing and lighting of the landscapes and seascapes provide a comfortable blend between PR and fantasy animation. The characters step ahead of the line in the quality of creature modeling and texturing. Granted, Penguins for the most part are simple characters to build and texture but these texture artists worked with a real feather/fur giving a brilliant sheen and movement to the characters skin. They, the penguins, are so close to a PR look that you begin to think of them as real. Yet, at the same time, it’s diffidently CG making them irresistibly cute and loveable. This is by far the best work done this year in all CG departments!
The special effects in this movie does not take back seat to anything either. There’s the tramping and tapping of feet in soft snow, speaking of snow theres a massive snow storm with extremely well done CG snow and wind, wonderful fluids laden with air bubble effects. There are also wisely used lighting effects most notably for me, a night time aurora scene that kindled the juices to make me want to go home and experiment on my system.
This movie is the real deal, the rare one this year that is truly worth seeing. If you think the marketing push equals Disney/Pixar well your right and it should be too. It equals the achievements and advances that we are so used to expecting from Pixar. Hopefully it will also provide a catalyst for other studios to push to such extremes and give us better offerings then many seen this year.
Over all, this movie was as grand as I have been hoping for, for about a year now. It’s a great movie for both young and old alike. Please don’t be fooled into thinking this is sit back and be sappy movie, it’s not. While it has its incredibly fun, cute and loving moments it’s a serious film with some serious story lines in it.
In my book it has two big down falls, one dealing with part of Mumbles adventure which I won’t mention as it’s to big of a spoiler but lets just say as in other movies the treatment of humans almost ruins the brilliance of the work on all the other creatures in the movie. The second is that it ends way too cleanly. Warner Brothers would be extremely hard pressed to provide a sequel to this movie which considering the history of sequels is probably a good thing. Yet I hate for this to be all there is to show with the magical land and creatures created in this movie.
I for one, am anxious for the DVD to come out so I can sit down and study a few scenes and try to mimic them on my own. In the end I believe Happy Feet will ‘March’ inline with its cousin penguins straight to Oscar gold.
Ratings:
- For a movie going experience I give “Happy Feet”
- 4.5 out of 5 stars.
- For a technical piece of CG animation and effects work I give it a
- 5 out of 5 stars.
About Tim - aurora - Dunn
Tim “aurora” Dunn is a freelance CG artist specializing in scientific visualization. He lives in a little town north of Boulder and has two beautiful daughters that live in Aspen. He works as a freelance programmer working on CG and game related projects. He is also the Chief Editor for CGFocus.com and a moderator for several CG related forums. He is currently back in school working towards a masters degree in software engineering.
HAPPY FEET
Warner Bros. Pictures
Warner Bros. Pictures presents in association with Village Roadshow Pictures a Kennedy Miller Prods. production in association with Animal Logic Film
Credits:
Director: George Miller
Screenwriters: George Miller, John Coll ee, Judy Morris, Warren Coleman
Producers: Doug Mitchell, George Miller, Bill Miller, Zach Nalbandian
Executive producers: Graham Burke, Edward Jones, Dana Goldberg, Bruce Berman
Co-directors: Judy Morris, Warren Coleman
Production designer: Mark Sexton
Music: John Powell
Choreographer: Savion Glover, Kelley Abbey
Supervising sound editor: Wayne Pashley
Supervising art director: David Nelson
Layout/camera director: David Peers
Editors: Margaret Sixel, Christian Gazal
Voices:
Mumble: Elijah Wood
Ramon/Lovelace: Robin Williams
Gloria: Brittany Murphy
Memphis: Hugh Jackman
Norma Jean: Nicole Kidman
Noah: Hugo Weaving
Boss Skua: Anthony LaPaglia
Running time -- 108 minutes
MPAA rating: PG
