Film Review - Happy Feet 2 (2011)

Happy Feet 2 is the sequel to the 2006 animated film Happy Feet also directed by George Miller (Mad Max), the story in this new movie is that Mumble (Elijah Wood) now has a son named Eric who like Mumble in the first movie is an outcast among his people, so he heads out into the world to find his own place and help his people in the process.

I went into Happy Feet 2 with low expectations as while I kinds liked the first Happy Feet film it did lose its way towards the end which did not put me in good stead for this sequel, with that how was the film?

Well, this is very much that classic case of having low expectations to start with and the film itself pretty much hitting rock bottom, I don't think this movie works in any way at all, in fact it has to my mind a real vibe of Miller's 1985 Mad Max sequel Beyond Thunderdome, why you ask well I'll outline my reasons below:

Firstly like Beyond Thunderdome there is no real coherent storyline driving this movie, all it feels like is a bunch of individual bits thrown together to make a 90 minute movie, now George Miller has made Mad Max 1 and 2 both of which were outstanding and even the first Babe and Happy Feet movies were good fun in and of themselves so why on Earth is this happening, I honestly thought Miller knew better than this, you can't just throw story ideas together into a feature film and hope that something, somewhere will stick out, it just doesn't work that way people and Miller should've known better.

And secondly the movie is just so god damn dull, almost right away the dark clouds of boredom descend and start to rain on the person watching it and during one of the many musical numbers you start wishing for them to start doing "Star Spangled Man" from Captain America, at least that would've alleviated the boredom I felt.

There was one thing however I did like and that was Will and Bill the Krill voiced by Matt Damon and Brad Pitt, their story was very funny but it made me wish those characters got better treatment, hopefully they will get some small pre-feature toons in the future as I was wishing that whilst watching them and as for Pink replacing Brittany Murphy well it just made me miss Murphy in the role and sad that a talented actress like her is gone.

All in all, skip this movie, don't rent it as it's not worth your time and its a waste of a director like George Miller who is despite this film being pretty much a complete failure a very talented director, I sincerely hope that his long delayed 4th instalment in the Mad Max series is successful though given the rock bottom expectations I have for that film as it is I can't say I'm optimistic for it having any real chance of success when it finally appears in cinemas around the world, 1 out of 5.