Happy Feet Two Review

George Miller returned to Antarctica with more of everything and less reason for any of it. Erik, Mumble's son, cannot dance, which repeats the first film's premise without deepening it, and the story then splits into three strands that never braid: a colony trapped by a collapsed ice shelf, a puffin passing himself off as a flying penguin, and two krill arguing about whether to leave the swarm.

The krill are the film. Brad Pitt and Matt Damon play Will and Bill as a tiny existential double act, and their scenes have a looseness the penguin material never finds. Hugh Jackman's Memphis gets a few bars of Elvis and a paternal worry the script forgets for long stretches. Robin Williams doubles up again as Ramon and Lovelace and mostly repeats himself.

The animation is the strongest argument in its favour: the ice cliffs, the light coming through green water, the sheer number of separate bodies moving in crowd shots that would have been impossible five years earlier. The musical numbers are mashups stitched out of radio hits, though, and the rescue asks an audience to feel awe at penguins doing aerobics while elephant seals shove snow.