Rating of
2/4
Too much of narrative and less of visual sparkle.
sreekirch - wrote on 05/27/12
“There is no worry”. This sequel to the original oscar winner is surely a dumb one. The lines of animation might be splendid, but it lacked the tempo and gusto the original gave. The emotional response, the artifacts and the plot were very well handled in the first part.
Director George Miller does not provide the required elements of joy in the movie. It is more sophisticated and looks a bit odd in terms of presentation and narrative. The second part crumbles slightly with sub plots and lot of characters to be exposed and handled. The narrative goes pulpy. It takes awhile before the main plot begins. One might fix with a plot, but rather get an another plot within few scenes. Still it is good enough to watch the penguins dancing to the floor recollecting happy feet.
The plot is divided into two portions. One being the small one Erik (Ava Acres) trying to find his destiny and deciding to fly, while the other is global warming effects on the penguin land. The first one is good to imagine, but the second one is a serious plot. Mumble (Elija Woods) explains his son Erik, that if one needs something he must feel it from inside. Gloria (Alecia Moore) asks mumble to go and get fish. She had a good role in the first part and in this one she has nothing to do, but start singing and asking her son to take a deep breath. Some other tiny characters Bill and Will (Matt Damon and Brad Pitt) are in the pursuit of making a new life. Land starts moving and penguins separate from each other. Mumble has to find a way to save the penguins and get reunited.
Plot development is not crisp. We see the opening of the movie with young Erik struggling to dance just like his father and goes inside a deep hole. From this point, we might feel a lot of emotional ride in the movie, but it backtracks and subplot opens when Erik wants to fly and asks the secret to the flying penguin Sven (Hans Azaria). Okay I agree with the plot here, but still more to trouble are the small subplots with extra characters infused to carry over the runtime. Though it is 90 minutes, it may still be feeling lengthy and tiresome due to the subplots. Land movement and adaptation skills are shown as an additional subplot, while Erik is still on the way to fly jumping from a higher cliff. Emotions are subdued and need for a compelling tale begins. From a place where it opened ends as a different one with just a acceptable ending. It is not exciting neither boring, but should have done well.
Animation is quite good. Visual effects and 3D shots are fine though. These things are the only ones to get entertained. But the plot has too many cut and knife edges to keep the audience engaged. It starts somewhere and ends somewhere. The interaction with the seal is a good one in the movie. Some handy scenes will save the movie. But still it did miss the mark. Unlike the original, this sequel is charred with too many characters and lengthy narrative to be sophisticatedly unnecessarily for a different subplot.
Happy feet two is neither boring nor exciting. It is pleasant watch once for the penguins and visual sparkle. It misses the mark to a greater extent and hope the next one should improve over this.
