Review of Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011) by Ben L — 03 Apr 2017

This is like a tale of 2 movies. One of them I like a lot, the other I find less than exciting. Of course the idea of making this film is to create a movie that will appeal to kids, and I can say right now that it should be successful from that standpoint. Kids will love all the different parts of this movie, even if it didn't work perfectly for me. So as you read on through the rest of this review, keep in mind that this is an adult talking, and I'm clearly not the primary target audience.

Let's start with the bad movie you will find here. They used some pretty convincing and impressive CGI to make the penguins do certain things a trained penguin could never do. Despite all this remarkable work, they use this talent to make CGI penguins poop or fart on cue. There is loads of this annoying toilet humor in the film. It seems like they had enough comedic material simply with Jim Carrey trying to cope in a ridiculous situation, so taking it to the bathroom just felt unnecessary.

The flip side is a delightful story about a man who never resolved his abandonment issues with his father. Seeing the emotional swings he goes through in this film can be both heartwarming and heart wrenching. A particularly deep emotional scene comes when Popper is trying to nurture an egg so it will hatch. So there is a sweet story about a father connecting with his kids, and his penguins, yet they pull it down from being something special because they want some cheap laughs. Still it's a cute movie that I'll willingly watch again.