Penquins are Marching

Looks like there's a couple good animated films on the way. Flushed Away is getting good buzz after it previews, and now David Poland writes this on Happy Feet.

The Hot Blog: "Happy Feet is a pretty clear lock to gross somewhere around $200 million and to win the Oscar for Animated Feature.

It will win and win because it is audacious and in some ways groundbreaking and entertaining for most of its near 2 hour running time, It also has one of the weirdest dramatic constructions for a story like this I have ever seen… not really in a good way. That is why this really isn’t Finding Nemo or The Incredibles.

But what it does offer is more what you might expect from Baz Luhrman than from George Miller…though Miller has always been the kind of groundbreaker you shouldn’t approach with expectations. The music is very Moulin Rouge. But as wild as some of the sequences are, it never goes off the rails into self-parody… even with Robin Williams offering at least two different character voices.

And in the end, this film speaks more directly to children about the importance of respect for the environment in a way you could never imagine coming. There are some truly audacious choices made by Miller in the third act… and they all work."