'Happy Feet' doesn't foot the bill

I won't lie. I'm a sucker for anything cute. Once a critter's eye-size-to-face ratio reaches a certain point, I'll follow it anywhere, giggling contentedly as I go. I'm like a Catholic schoolgirl.\nOr I was, until I saw "Happy Feet." Do not be taken in by the lies, my friends. Do not be swept away by the singing and the dancing and the pretty penguins, or even by the Robin Williams, for the sad truth of the matter is that this movie has little going for it besides fancy computer animation and bouncy, flightless waterfowl.\nThe premise of the film is pretty simple: Unlike all of the other emperor penguins in the entire colony, young Mumble (voiced by Elijah Wood) is born without the ability to sing and is instead cursed with the inability to keep his tapping feet still and quiet. He is told he will never fit in with the rest of the colony, as their entire civilization is based on finding one's own "heart song" and singing it out. He'll never know the joy of romance, as the penguins mate through music. At one point, he's even banished from the group.\nI was hopeful in the beginning. I found myself feeling quite sorry for poor Mumble, and I was optimistic enough to believe that the movie would carry some real meaning. But the "happy feet" lose their rhythm partway through the film, when the storyline veers violently off course and becomes some sermon on happy-feely environmentalism. Yuck.\nThe problem is that the movie loses its focus. Other big animated films this year have managed to concentrate on a few key themes. Disney/Pixar's "Cars" was mostly about slowing down to enjoy the important things in life. Sony's "Monster House" focused on the fear of the unknown realm of adulthood. Even Dreamworks' flop "Flushed Away" stuck pretty stubbornly to a theme of cheap animation.\nWhen halfway through "Happy Feet" Mumble sets off on a quest to stop the humans from ravaging the Antarctic food chain, I lost interest. The movie stopped being about Mumble and his struggle to find acceptance, and I stopped caring. The film's great soundtrack faded into the background, there were too few dance sequences after that point, and we become disconnected from nearly all of the characters. What a shame.\nIf I wanted some suit to waddle around and squawk at me about how my wasteful habits are destroying our ecosystem, I would have rented "An Inconvenient Truth." I wanted the singing, dancing penguins to say something meaningful and personal to me, and I was thoroughly disappointed.