Slant Magazine

As another huge fan of the original (my fave animated film by then), I also wonder how is the sequel for people who liked the original? Because it was also trashed like this.

I hate the original film. It was garbage. But, yeah, that Cronenberg's Glee thing is exactly what bothered me too. But, as I told someone else recently: "its' promotional campaign promised cuteness, its' controversy promised depth and socio-political merit. The film delivered neither."

(The controversy I'm referring to is its' considerable bashing by conservatives for alleged environmentalist and gay acceptance messages.)

No worries, Glenn. I and the members of the small, hipster-elitist armchair film critic/student/etc., message board I frequent are all in direct opposition to most of the critics on this one. It's actually disconcerting to me just how many of the reviews for this installment spend so much time discussing their "utter disgust" with one of the core, surface-level defining aspects of what the series is about, this one included, and how—after all of that is said and done—there isn't much "review" left. It's just a bunch of posturing without any real complaint, essentially a lot of hot air, which seems to be the kind of thing that defines internet film criticism as a whole right now, and that's very depressing. This might be the first time that I can remember that a film has received a bad reputation entirely on the strength of a bunch of hand-waving, because every one I've talked to or read who isn't subject to these whims loved the film and had nothing but good things to say about it.

Nevermind all that stuff, though. It's a marvelous film, and a more than worthy continuation of Miller's work on the first movie. And, considering you know how highly I think of that one, this is not praise given too lightly. What was surprising to me was just how dark Miller decides to go with this one. Death is made a constant reminder of, the entire way through—after the colony is trapped, famine and starvation are made palpable threats. And, what's interesting is how the film follow's the natural course of the environment in this respect—after that happens, the colony becomes vulnerable and are subject to attack by the birds of prey in what is one of the best scenes of the film.

And, the climax is euphoric, and a stroke of kaleidoscopic brilliance—the way it contrasts the crowds of penguins and elephant seals above in the snow stomping primally toward survival with the vibrant, neon colors of the krill biomass responding to the beat and noise down below, oh man. You'll just love it.

And the entire arc with the elephant seal. And the Sven character, with his backstory and religious affect on the penguins. And the newer approach to the human scenes, where all's black and white with sudden splashes of color. And the storm sequence. And Erik's opera. And on and on and on.

The only thing that brings the film down a little bit for me are the presence of these two really weird poop jokes that are out of place and—just bizarre, by themselves. It's like they weren't even trying to be funny, just really uncomfortable. The first one is in the first ten minutes, and the other ruins a relatively dramatic moment that I was really getting into. You can't miss 'em.

"It's actually disconcerting to me just how many of the reviews for this installment spend so much time discussing their "utter disgust" with one of the core, surface-level defining aspects of what the series is about, this one included, and how—after all of that is said and done—there isn't much "review" left."

I can't get my head around what you wrote here. Isn't a thing's core in a different place from its surface? And are a thing's "defining aspects," of what "[it] is about," off-limits? Should we not talk about what a thing is? Is this how the members of your group write and think, as a rule? Most confusing.

THE FILMIST IS WRONG-your review is absolutely right. This is not a good picture

"I can't get my head around what you wrote here. Isn't a thing's core in a different place from its surface? And are a thing's "defining aspects," of what "[it] is about," off-limits? Should we not talk about what a thing is? Is this how the members of your group write and think, as a rule? Most confusing."

It's kind of like this—if you were to review a film about Batman, and you spent almost a good third of the review complaining about the fact that this was a film about a man who ran around in a suit with bat ears, that wouldn't be a valid review. You don't really confront anything on a narrative level, you're not talking about it's structure or it's visual textures, and so on. You're letting your own personal problem with one of the things that superficially defines the work take over the rest of the piece, and this prevents you from confronting anything else in the work past a passing mention, or writing a real review.

Instead, it's filled with these vague attempts at witticism that—well, I just don't get because they're not really biting or witty, they just kind of fall flat, which is a shame because they make up about 2/3's of the article. This is a symptom of a larger problem I have with online writing as a whole, but that's for another time.

"Isn't a thing's core in a different place from its surface?"

If we're getting into semantics, maybe. But I was talking about one of the most visible, bare things that defines the work on a surface level.

^ "Vague attempts at witticism" is only a problem with online writing? I don't see a distinction between online writing and print writing. It's such a sweeping generalization. Writing is writing. People are people. A bad movie is a bad movie.

Ideally, I'd agree with you, man. I mean, I'm an online film critic, and so is Glenn. That's what we do, and I'm hoping that the people who've read our work think we've done well enough that we've made people think and reconsider. But, of late I really have seen that there's a lot more of this kind of thing in our arena than anywhere else. Why? Because it's a lot easier to get by with bad writing on the internet? I don't know. There's probably a bunch of reasons, but I know I can't be the first person to have said this.

TheFilmist, thanks for a much more lucid response than the one you gave on 11/22.

I kind of agree with you, but the thing is, I have to write about what interests me. If I find that I'm kicking against the film with my whole spirit, that's the response I have to record. The way I see my role at Slant is not to discuss film on the level you speak of *unless* I feel the urge to go above and beyond *for* the film. Frankly, the textures of HAPPY FEET TWO just made me feel like I was watching hundreds, maybe thousands, maybe tens of thousands of hours of a computer rendering objects and landscapes. It made me really resist what I saw because, on the other hand, I couldn't really discern the personality of a creator making this huge, almost militaristic expenditure of funds into something interesting or new. It's kind of disappointing to note that George Miller made the MAD MAX movies, and LORENZO'S OIL, and the second BABE movie, all of which are infused with strange personality to one degree or another.

Now, I could have written all that, and in other reviews, I have. What I chose was to treat HAPPY FEET TWO as a pop object—which is *absolutely* a crucial part of its character. How could anyone overlook that? I am confident that I described it as such, with accuracy—catty accuracy but accuracy nonetheless.

That just leaves the bit about me trying to be funny. I fully understand that lots of readers think I'm not funny. I'm not settling into the bathtub with my razors just yet. As long as Ed likes my reviews, I'm a happy camper.

Your beef with me seems to boil down to "you're writing about this aspect of the film when you should be writing about that one, because that's where the film's really at." I don't like that at all, and I don't know if we're going to see eye to eye on this matter. Which is too bad, you sound (on 11/23 at least) like a pretty reasonable guy. I think if you look at some of the other reviews I've done for Ed these past few months, from Rohmer to DAVID HOLZMAN'S DIARY to CARS 2, you might agree with me that I have quite a few instruments in my band, and I can play them all pretty decently. Maybe you'll see that this isn't "Jaime Christley is the 1%" after all?

Hey, it's all good, man. But, I mean if you're going to review a film, and especially a film like this one which, for all it's faults (that it does have to an extent, and that others have proposed that I personally don't see), is most certainly trying to be a thing with some heft and drama and weight behind it on various levels as opposed to the regular kind of dreck pumped out at this time by the very same studio, then I think it's kind of due that you'd review it as a film instead of as *just* some idiosyncratic collection of cultural pop memes thrown together. Because, that kind of approach to a work—any work, really, even the relatively inconsequential ones like the recent Jack & Jill—doesn't really cause any reflection on the thing being reviewed, whether that's to inspire a more positive or negative outlook on it, which should be the goal of any film critic, online or off, right?

I mean, I think with this film and it's predecessor, you can without equivocation see that they are Miller's films. His trademark style of cinematography, his constant themes like Glenn points out, his use of wasteland and the structure of the fable and myth to inform the work, stuff like that. The Happy Feet movies are interesting because they're right in the middle—not quite the fairy-tales that the Babe movies are, but not quite as grisly as the Mad Max films. They're a bit like Watership Down, in that way. This sounds like a lot of posturing as well, but if you listen to the guy talk about these two films in particular in more protracted interviews, this is what he's trying to achieve, for good or ill. So, take it in that way and see how close it comes to the goal he's set for it. What other barometer can a work really have?

I've got no doubt that you're a skilled reviewer, man—I've read your other stuff on here, and it's good; you're right up there as one of the better writers on the site, I think. But, with animated films I think a lot of reviewers feel, because of the larger pop-cultural presence they present than most other films released and because of the assumed stigma of childish anti-intellectualism that comes with most animated films outside of Pixar (which is also strange), this gives the critic license to riff instead of review, which is never a good thing, I don't think. I done dun it too, so you're not alone in that.

Man, I've got to find another writing outlet. I've been gone off the grid for way too long.

Wow, I don't even know where to begin. The two of you clearly have an idea of film criticism that involves being more interested in a movie than one is to begin with, and going from there—and, somehow, HAPPY FEET TWO (of all movies) is the test case. TheFilmist, I disagree with you right from your premise that HF2 deserves to be taken seriously, and Glenn... I don't know what to say, except most emphatically No, no, and no again. I was under an obligation to review the film, as I am with many films, and the **best I can do** for the utopian vision you proffer is to keep mum about a film I don't like *after* I've completed my assignment.

ON THE OTHER HAND, if someone wants to defend the film in the terms that you seem to need to hear, I'm sure they're out there somewhere, or you can do it.

By all means, have your conversations, God love you for them. But to expect a review to progress from "It's lousy because of a, b, and c" to "but having said that here's a serious exploration of its themes of family and whatnot," seems to contrary to basic reality that I had to laugh. The idea that a film is defensible because "it has these themes, you know" is unacceptable to me, because it suggests a work of art is commendable for its agenda, which could easily be summarized in an outline, on paper somewhere.

As for Miller, I'm actually legitimately curious to see if his way of looking/thinking about things (as represented by the cinematography, virtual or otherwise, and cutting, and mise-en-scene, etc) is somehow identifiable and comparable to his other (and, to my eyes, stronger) work from before 2006...as of now I don't really think of him as one of our best directors but believe me when I say I'm **always** open to the idea that I'm wrong in underrating an auteur. I didn't really detect any similarities between, say, HF2 and, say, THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK, but I'd love to find out there are some.

Also, don't put me in with "a lot of reviewers," because I have been in the reviewing community, off and on, for twenty years, and I'm confident in saying I don't have much in common with the "lot" of them.

Exactly, Glenn. I'm not even saying 'don't give it a negative review.' Do that, by all means—but, give it a review. Not a toss-off. And, I'd say this for any film that puts the effort forth to be considered as such.

I think you guys need to look to someone else for what you need. I don't need to carefully consider anything if I determine otherwise.

I had a comment in the pipeline that was too inflammatory to appear here, so it doesn't—so let me just say this: I don't "toss off" any of my work. All of my reviews take several hours to complete, *especially* those that don't seem like it. I'm long past trying to please every reader. Anyone who wants to be a critic and stay sane will know what I mean there.

To paraphrase a friend in a different discussion, on a different film, if my feelings about the film were more positive, I could decouple judgment from description. When we like a film, we're better at engaging with it. But that doesn't give one the right to say that the critic who disliked it should do the same. HF2's themes just aren't interesting to me, at all. If they're interesting to (the universal) you, knock yourself out.

Otherwise, the comments section is an absolutely brilliant way to squander one's critical gifts, and time, and so I'm checking out.

Several pot-stirrers of the Twitter variety have linked to the comments thread here — I doubt I'd have read the review without these urgings — and suggested that Mr. Christley is comically worked up and out of line. While it's true that Mr. Heath and The Filmist are more civil than the cornered reviewer, I'd like to point out that said reviewer's remarks about the very nature of reviewing/reviews are sound and that I agree with his assessment of the film being scrutinized here. As a histrionic defender of family-friendly 3D animated features, I feel qualified to dribble some loose birdy feces on this one.

I've read this review a few times expecting to find it cloyingly riffy or crippled in some way intellectually, as its detractors suggest it is. On the contrary, I think it's remarkably fair for a pungently negative review. Mr. Christley's conveying of certain production details constitute "informed" and in places (e.g., in dealing with the krill) he's dryly analytical rather than snide.

I'd like to add that comment threads *can* be a great place for healthy, productive debate but at a certain point one wonders why eager hyperverbal commenters have not simply written their own reviews of a given film.

Oh, I definitely believe the film takes a while to find its feet—the first ten minutes or so, and especially during the opening medley, feel a little disjointed and try to pack a lot of contextual information into too few scenes. We're informed of Mumble's new place in the community as a leader, of his son's embarrassment, of the incoming iceberg, of the krill and their journey, all in the space of about fifteen minutes. And, while individually I think a lot of those moments are pretty great, when they're placed together it just becomes kind of jumbled. This is particularly obvious in that opening scene in the scattered way it seems to jump from song to song—it feels jarring.

But, find its feet it does for the most part, I think—and, I liked how all of the story elements seem to flow and become more cohesive as the story goes on, almost organically. What seems unimportant at first returns again later with more resonance, like the elephant seal's arc, or Sven's relevance to the story, and all of that kind of thing.

What's interesting is, all of Miller's devices that were such a part of the first film in how strange and alien they seemed to the penguins return again, and they've just become an acknowledged part of the landscape for the rest of them, in part because of the film's overarching theme of the interrelations that tie an environment and a world together. Thus, the humans and their more benevolent role in the story.

A lot of the self-same thematic and narrative motifs from the first film return, but its within that framework of relationships and debts that Miller lets them develop, which is a particularly intriguing difference between this and its predecessor. Where the first film was structured, like Mad Max 2, as a mythic fable being recounted by a narrator whose presence in the story becomes known later on, this is a much more immediate thing. I'm not sure about whether or not that was a more or less wise choice from a storytelling perspective, but I like it.

Also, Mr. Adams has a point—why aren't we writing our own reviews, since we all have so much to say about the movie? For my part, I'm working on mine along with a few others currently, but discussions like this always let me hone my opinion on a given film before I press 'submit.'