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Well, surprise surprise It's yet ANOTHER penguin movie, the third that has been released in the last few years and the second which is animated. I went to this movie this afternoon under duress, but I did so because My Midget had been a very good girl this week in order to earn her viewing. What I discovered was that I actually enjoyed this movie more than that other animated penguin movie. There is no singing or dancing. In fact, there is a joke in reference to it. Instead the movie is told from a mockumentary style, and if any of you have watched the behind the scenes documentary style shows on ESPN, you'll get a real kick out of the film just for that aspect. It also really loves the sport of surfing. It's not taken to a comic level, where through a bad script written by a surfing novice would make it seem childish and ignorant. Out of the multiple screenwriters on this project, at least a couple of them knew more than a thing or two about surfing and have infused a natural sense of the sport into the dialog and general feel of the flick. The voice performances are great as well. Shia LeBeouf provides the voice of Cody Maverick, the young penguin surfer dude who's a real know-it-all when it comes to what he's so certain that he knows what he can do. I don't think LeBeouf has done any other voice performances, but he was cut out for this c*cky little bird and is PERFECT for it. Jeff Bridges does the voice for the old surfing guru, doing a bit of a spin on his Big Lebowski character, The Dude. He's laid back and yet very funny in his delivery of lines. John Heder, someone who got lucky in finding the role of Napoleon Dynomite and was amusing in JUST LIKE HEAVEN and yet has bombed in every other role that I've seen him in, is actually quite good as the surfer dude Chicken Joe. In fact, unless you're really familiar with Heder, I doubt that you would have been able to place that it was him if I hadn't told you. The humour has some creatively subversive moments and made me and the other adults in the audience giggle after the kids were done giggling at the parts that were intended for them. The movie has a good feel to it overall. The main point that it suffers from is having a predictable and crappy soundtrack which sells short the quality of the script. There was no need for one Green Day song to be used, let alone two. The other thing of note for me was the markings on the penguins. I loved the little swirls, flowers, flames and other markings which really looked like tattoos of sorts on the penguins. It helped to better differentiate the characters and basically just looked rather cool. All in all, if you've got to decide whether to take your child to this movie or SHREK, I say have faith in the penguins. It's a hell of a lot more fun. email this review to a friend
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