My Review of Happy Feet Two · 11:08pm Jan 22nd, 2023
Rating Scale:
12/10—a complete masterpiece; flawless and outstanding
11/10—Excellent, near-perfect film
10/10—the standard rating; awesome film with a couple of flaws
9/10—a wonderful film with several flaws
8/10–a great film with numerous flaws but not enough to ruin it
7/10—a fun and entertaining movie; not great but still enjoyable
6/10—a slightly above average film; it is something I might watch again
5/10—mediocre movie; not awful but not great either
4/10—a below average film; it could have been much better
3/10—a bad film; poorly written and poorly executed
2/10—a very bad movie; the few good things in the movie overshadowed by the bad things
1/10—a terrible movie; a total waste of time
0/10—a worthless piece of abomination; should have never been made
Greetings, everyone! This is Mr. J back with another movie review for today! This evening, I will be reviewing Happy Feet Two—a 2011 sequel to the first movie. Surprisingly, I’ve never seen this film before; I mean, I grew up with its predecessor and yet this sequel managed to slip past me when it first came out? Haha, man, it really does feel good discovering something new every now and then. Anyway, I decided to watch this for the first time earlier today and see if it’s on par with the first movie. To be honest, it was actually….pretty good! I found myself enjoying this movie from start to finish. While it isn’t as good as its predecessor, it still manages to be entertaining and enjoyable.
Mumble is now a father and husband, married to Gloria and has Erik as their son. The latter is hesitant to dance and wants to achieve something higher as a penguin. Things get worse as the meltdown causes a massive glacier to crash against the Emperor Lands, trapping all the Emperor Penguins. Mumble, Erik, and Ramon must find a way to save them from starvation while they seek help from other places.
Right off the bat, I really want to point out the elephant in the room—or rather the krill in the ocean. Will and Bill the Krill were the only factors thereof that were out-of-place and unnecessary. It felt like I was watching an entirely different movie every time they appeared on screen because they had little to no effect on the story, the main characters, and the conflict. Why were they in this movie?
This isn’t to say they weren’t entertaining characters. I like them, but they should have their own spin-off film instead of being shoe-horned into a penguin-centered sequel. I’m not sure why George Miller felt the need to focus half the film on Will the Krill instead of focusing solely on Mumble and Erik.
Aside from that, the main storyline was really well-written and taught a lot of great lessons about believing that you can do something even if it may seem impossible to do so. Taking a leap of faith, if you will. The character development was solid, the singing and the music were glorious, and the animation was splendid as usual.
They kept the spirit of the predecessor and added more depth for its characters. The voice acting of its returning cast along with Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Hank Azaria, Common, Ava Acres, and the others were all well-done.
I especially enjoyed watching Sven in this film, but he was unfortunately underused due to pacing issues and putting a little too much focus on the krill. Honestly, he should have been the fourth main character as he had the backstory to qualify him as someone who wants to be accepted by people by making himself to be something he isn’t…just so that he wouldn’t be alone. His final scenes felt rushed and unsatisfactory at best because he didn’t have enough screen time to fully flesh out his character.
Wow, this movie had the potential to be perfect. But instead, all three of its directors had to fit all these secondary characters together which made it sloppily-paced in the process. Again, this was a pretty good movie although it was a bit choppy due to the negative factors I’ve highlighted. Take the krill out of this, give them their own spin-off, give Sven a more fleshed-out character growth, and it would be flawless. Just my opinion. With that, I’ll give it an 8/10.
RIP Robin Williams and Richard Carter.
Mighty Sven song is good
This is only a theory, but I think Miller may have incorporated the subplot revolving around Will and Bill to kinda replicate the style of the Ice Age films. In this case, despite the movies always being about Diego, Sid, and Manny, the movies would also have a subplot revolving around Scrat, even if he doesn't really contribute much to the main story at all.
With Will and Bill...I liked how Miller made their character arcs be like a "story within a story" rather than be there simply for comedy purposes, and the way he intertwined the two narratives and got them to connect together in their own way was interesting to watch.
I agree with you on Sven, though. He was a fun character, but he needed more time to actually develop too.
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I would make Scrat an exception because he’s had five movies to become a beloved character. Will and Bill only had one movie…after the first film.
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Of course.