Penguins

Madagascar Year: 2005 Rating: PG Length: 86 minutes / 1.43 hours DreamWorks movies have always had a harsh comparison to their competition at Pixar. The visuals were never as stunning, the jokes as high-brow, or the plots as thought-provoking. And while Shrek (2001) was an early outlier, enough time has passed that they've developed some great movies like How To Train Your Dragon (2010) and The Bad Guys (2022). Still, movies like Madagascar (2005) highlighted everything that made DreamWorks movies distinctly of that studio—and also ultimately "less than" the comparable fare being put out by Pixar at the same time. Ironically, Pixar explored the whole "predators can't deny their instincts" plot to a much greater effect in Zootopia (2016). In Madagascar, these four Central Park Zoo animals find themselves separated from the support system that made their life comfortable. Their reactions to being in the titular country are played for laughs through the "fish out of water" trope. And while the frenetic, jerky motions of...

Happy Feet Year: 2006 Rating: PG Length: 108 minutes / 1.80 hours Very few movies have pivoted so hard on me like Happy Feet (2006). I vaguely remembered the trailers for this film back in the day but wasn't too interested in it because it wasn't from Disney or Pixar (I might have also confused it with Surf's Up (2007)). However, the fact that it won Best Animated Picture for that year should have told me there was something special here. However, my expectations for Happy Feet were much different than the plot twist that I hadn't seen coming. Since I was coming in cold to this film (har har), I had expected it to be the standard "individual is unique, but doesn't fit in with the status quo" type plot. After all, the main character (voiced by Elijah Wood) is the odd-one-out in a community of penguins by being unable to sing. However, this inability to sing is overshadowed by Mumble's extraordinary ability to...

Tag: Penguins

MOVIE: Madagascar (2005)

MOVIE: Happy Feet (2006)