Movies starring penguins are amazing because they showcase the unique characteristics and personalities of these beloved birds. Penguins are known for their comical waddling, their devoted parenting skills, and their impressive swimming abilities. These traits are often highlighted in movies featuring penguins, making for entertaining and heartwarming viewing experiences. Additionally, the stunning Antarctic landscapes and underwater scenes in many penguin movies provide a visually breathtaking backdrop for the story. Overall, movies starring penguins offer a fun and heartwarming viewing experience that is sure to delight audiences of all ages, and here are my top 4 penguin films.
Happy Feet
Release Year: 2006
Maturity: PG
Run Time: 1hr 48min
Metascore: 77
The opening musical number in "Happy Feet Two" reminds me of Zhang Yimou's choreography for the 2008 Olympics. There are thousands and thousands of penguins, all perfectly coordinated, singing and dancing. One wonders if, like the Chinese performers, they were getting their cues from tiny earpieces. But where are a penguin's ears?
The fact is, penguins offer relatively little for an animator to work with. They can't smile or wink. They can't furrow their brows. They have flippers instead of hands. As for dancing, we look at two big feet extending a few inches from a spheroid body and know we won't be reminded of Fred Astaire. By and large, penguins look much alike. I'm sure they can tell themselves apart, but I was thankful for the one wearing the rainbow knit sweater and wish they'd all had baseball caps or tattoos or anything.
The youngish audiences for this movie may not agree with me. George Miller's original "Happy Feet" (2006) grossed $385 million and won an Oscar for best animated feature, and here again is the hero Mumble (Elijah Wood), now with a young son, Erik (Ava Acres). The two of them and perhaps a dozen other penguins, krill, seals and puffins are developed as characters; the thousands of others are as alike as members of a marching band. Some whole species are denied individual status; the birds are merely birds, and although we share the suffering of the krill as they risk being eaten, there is no sympathy for lots of fish that are gobbled alive.
Surfs Up
Release Year: 2007
Maturity: PG
Run Time: 1hr 25min
Metascore: 64
Ever since Luc Jacquet's endearing documentary "March of the Penguins" persuaded Hollywood that penguins are the new Bambis, we have endured singing, wisecracking and even tap-dancing versions. Now, treading eagerly on the flippers of last year's "Happy Feet," comes "Surf's Up," a computer-animated comedy featuring birds on boards.
To deliver its winning-isn't-everything message, this ho-hum addition to the kiddie canon follows Cody Maverick (engagingly voiced by Shia LaBeouf), a young Rockhopper penguin with surfing in his blood and dreams of greatness in his head. Trailed by a documentary film crew, the fatherless Cody (Dad was eaten by a killer whale) heads for his first professional surfing competition, at which he will learn about love, perseverance and the feet-of-clay principle.
Assisting in his education is a washed-up champ (Jeff Bridges), a coy lifeguard (Zooey Deschanel) and the reigning titleholder (Diedrich Bader), whose relationship with his trophies borders on the indecent.
Directed by Ash Brannon and Chris Buck (both contributed to the screenplay), "Surf's Up" has a friendly, blue-collar vibe (Cody is an ex-fish-sorter from the Shiverpool, Antarctica) and some sly, low-key humor. Nevertheless, a moratorium on penguins might be called for, despite the inevitable anthropomorphic void. Lord help us if "Ratatouille" is a hit.
Penguins of Madagascar
Release Year: 2014
Maturity: PG
Run Time: 1hr 32min
Metascore: 53
One would think a little of these crazy creatures would go a long way. And indeed, this family-friendly animated comedy from co-directors Eric Darnell and Simon J. Smith is predicated on a single joke: the idea that these overconfident penguins—who fancy themselves as super spies—are completely bumbling and inept, yet they manage to wriggle out of every tricky situation not only to survive but thrive and save the day.
But the pacing is so zany, the jokes are so rapid-fire and the sight gags are so inspired that its impossible not to get caught up in the infectious energy of it all. The script (credited to John Aboud, Michael Colton and Brandon Sawyer) finds enough avenues into that one joke to make the premise seem, if not consistently fresh, at least enjoyable. And the formidable voice cast, featuring John Malkovich and the ubiquitous Benedict Cumberbatch, takes this silly work absolutely seriously, and thats one of the most amusing bits of all.
Penguins of Madagascar serves as both an origin story and a spin-off, as it follows these adorable animals on an adventure of their own. The zoo animals from the original series, voiced by Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer and Jada Pinkett Smith, are nowhere to be found. We begin in Antarctica, where a long line of penguins is waddling across the merciless, snowy terrain to nowhere, because (as even they acknowledge) theyre not allowed to think for themselves. This is just what they do—and what the documentary crews expect them to do, in a knowing jab at the over-saturation of penguin-related properties over the past decade or so.
Mr. Popper's Penguins
Release Year: 2011
Maturity: PG
Run Time: 1hr 34min
Metascore: 53
Mr. Popper's Penguins" is a stupefying dumb family movie proving that penguins have limited charisma as pets. I mean, what do they do? They sit on eggs, they waddle, they eat fish and they squawk. Sometimes they might snap at you. The movie stars Jim Carrey, who is in his pleasant mode. It would have helped if he were in his manic mode, although it's hard to get a rise out of a penguin.
The movie is inspired by a 1938 children's book, apparently beloved by many. I haven't read it, so I'm trying to imagine why kids might like it. My best guess is that the idea of living in your home with penguins is more delightful than the experience. Penguins look cute in their little tuxedos, and kids can imagine being friends with them. The problem with a movie is that they take on an actual presence that gets old real fast.
This is, perhaps I should make clear, not an animated film. If the penguins were zooming into outer space in 3-D, that might change things. Weighted down by their apparent reality, they're more limited, although sometimes they slide down stuff on their bellies. One goes hang-gliding, but not very convincingly. I assumed that all of the penguins in the movie were created with CGI, but no. I learn from IMDb: "Some are, some aren't." Since they all look and behave much the same, either the CGI is very good, or the real penguins are well-trained.