A Penguin That Has Come Alive

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." This quote, attributed to Howard Thurman, an author and educator, among other things, best captures what Happy Feet is all about. Happily, this serious "moral of the story" doesn't ruin any of the crazy, rolling-on-the-floor-laughing fun of the arctic movie that slaughtered the sizzling hot 007 at the box office.

In Mumble's Antarctic Emperor Penguin colony (and in reality), penguins seek their mates by calling out to them. Mates recognize each other by their unique calls, or, in the case of Happy Feet, their "heart songs." Mumble (voiced by Elijah Wood) is the only one who doesn't have his own "heart song"-presumably because when Mumble was just an egg, his father Memphis (voiced by Hugh Jackman) accidentally dropped him, and this caused a little damage, rendering him, among other things, tone deaf.

One of these "other things" is the disconcerting fact, at least to the conformist elders of the colony, that instead of being a singer, Mumble turns out to be a tap dancer. In fact, he came out of his egg tap-dancing.

"What's wrong with your feet?" Memphis asks him.

"Nothing, Dad," he replies, "They're just happy."

Expectedly, Mumble's being different led him to be misunderstood, laughed at, and cast away, never mind that he's good in a lot of other penguin things, like catching fish, swimming, and saving his fluffy down from predators. And again, expectedly, it's also his being different that eventually makes Mumble the hero of the movie.

What I like about the Happy Feet is that Mumble doesn't become a hero during his actual "heroic journey." When the elders blame him and his non-conformist ways for the lean fish supply, Mumble sets out, in defiance, with his entourage of Adelie Penguins with Latino accents (a handful of them voiced by Robin Williams) to find out the real reason behind their dwindling food source. They trace the problem to a huge "alien" fishing boat catching the fish by gigantic-net-fuls. Mumble bravely swims after the boat, and somehow ends up in an aquatic zoo.

How he saves his colony from behind a glass cage that's a big body of water and temperature-degrees away from home becomes a matter of, as Thurman said, coming alive: waking up to his true self, Mumble dances away his "heart song;" finds himself being sent home; inspires his entire colony to dance his song; moves the "alien" population of humans into debate and then action; changes world fishing policy up to the level of the United Nations; and saves the lives of his loved ones, his species, and the rest of the species up the arctic food chain. All this happened because one penguin danced.

I could go and rave about the sound track (which is really, really great, I tell you), the cute characters (perfect for merchandising), the witty dialogue, and the superb animation, but while those aspects are nonetheless memorable, I think what makes Happy Feet a cut above the rest is the message that it leaves you with: that sometimes heroes become heroes just by being themselves.

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