Film Name: 快乐的大脚2 / Happy Feet Two
In 2006, “Happy Feet” emerged as a dark horse to win an Oscar, and I always thought it was overrated. However, this film from six years ago did have some genuinely fresh elements at the time: it was the world’s first major animated feature starring penguins as protagonists; it was the first major animated feature set in Antarctica; and it was also one of the rarer animated musicals in recent years.
Yet when these gimmicks are recycled unchanged six years later, you realize that without the novelty of being “firsts,” they amount to nothing. Some franchises can be endlessly reused—take Shrek, for instance. Stories built around him remain compelling because he never loses his freshness. But other assets cannot be simply carried forward. Take the penguin protagonist, the Antarctic setting, and the musical genre from Happy Feet. When reused, they lose their original novelty, demanding that sequels surpass their predecessors to succeed. This is precisely why Happy Feet Two underperformed in North America. It relied on ideas that had lost their freshness without offering anything truly innovative.
Admittedly, the sequel’s creative team had new ambitions, notably introducing fresh characters. Thus, krill, walruses, seagulls, and penguins from other colonies all took the stage, staging an Antarctic-themed animal carnival. Reportedly, the production team invested significant effort studying the anatomy and movements of these marine creatures, substantially increasing costs. Yet, these animals, seemingly included merely for the sake of inclusion, rendered the overall narrative structure exceptionally loose, leaving the audience uncertain of the film’s core message.
At first, when the little penguin felt down because he couldn’t dance, I thought this would be a heartwarming family drama about father-son bonds. No! Then another penguin colony appeared, and I assumed it would be a war movie between two penguin tribes. No! A magical flying penguin showed up, and I figured it would be a mystery about the secrets of this extraordinary penguin. No! Humans appeared, and I thought it was an environmental film about humanity and nature. No! A walrus appeared, and I gasped, thinking the ultimate boss was a walrus. No! A massive earthquake struck, and it turned out the emperor penguins were trapped by glacial shifts caused by the quake. They wanted to escape—this was a rescue film. Until the very end, I couldn’t believe breaking through the frozen enclosure would be the film’s ultimate resolution, because it was just too disjointed.
Take the appearance of humans, for instance—it’s truly perplexing. They arrived on oil tankers, but then there was an oil spill, polluting the entire sea surface. Humans seemed to be playing the role of destroyers of the natural ecosystem. No! They kindly rescued a penguin, gave it clothes, and nursed it aboard the ship. So people are kind after all. No! They were eating roasted chicken, causing the seagulls and penguins who thought humans were caring for them to panic and flee—humans were enemies after all. No! You’re wrong again. When they encountered the penguin they’d rescued before, they danced in perfect harmony with it, guided by the spirit of Lei Feng to rescue emperor penguins trapped in icebergs. Turns out they were thoroughly good people after all. No! Just as you’re generously judging these humans, you discover they vanished in a storm, never to be seen again.
In short, you’ll feel this film challenges your intelligence not through wisdom, but through sheer chaos.
Krill play a minor role in this film, yet they receive significant screen time and detailed portrayal. However, a krill with a rather Copernican spirit, after a grand expedition, ends up negating itself. Ultimately, it relies on its sidekick to deliver a weighty speech that unlocks the mystery—a development that leaves one utterly dumbfounded. And what truth did they discover? Does the survival value of bottom-feeding organisms ultimately lie in staying low-key? Visually, krill make excellent characters, but narratively, the life lessons they uncover fail to justify their screen time.
The film’s most striking segment is the opening krill tide—a natural phenomenon rendered in animation for the first time, both spectacular and visually compelling. An unassuming penguin leaps off a cliff, deliberately trapping himself in glacial ice, all to accompany the female penguin who once looked down on him. His devotion ultimately wins her heart. This subplot is genuinely touching, though it remains too minor an interlude compared to the main narrative.
As for the young penguin’s soul-shaking opera performance to persuade the walrus—it was so startling it left one speechless. The translated dialogue sounded more like a disillusioned youth ranting against society. Moreover, even if the walrus owed a debt of gratitude for being saved, it bore no obligation to aid the penguin. If you rescue someone expecting future repayment, if you take such repayment as a rightful quid pro quo for your act of kindness, that value system is highly questionable. Even if justified, you can’t force others to reciprocate.
For the “Happy Feet” series, song and dance have become the very essence of life. It seems singing and dancing for Antarctic penguins is as habitual as drinking alcohol is for Chinese people. They’ll have a drink or two whenever they feel like it, and dance whenever the mood strikes. To reiterate: while the penguins’ collective tap dance in the first film could be admired as a spectacle, in the sequel, the unnaturalness of this deliberately imposed dance gradually becomes apparent. Though audiences know this is animation—a fabricated imaginary world—they still can’t help but wonder: Why do penguins love singing and dancing so much?
Six years is a long gap for an animated sequel. By now, people have mostly forgotten the first film’s content, style, and characters, making it hard for the sequel to build momentum. From the novelty-driven “Happy Feet” to this year’s “Happy Feet Two,” audiences have shifted from genuine, immersive joy to a hollow, inexplicable happiness. What truly brings joy here? Beyond the humor derived from a few popular pop songs, it’s hard to pinpoint anything else. The attempt to cram in everything often results in failing to deliver anything well.
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