Penguin Karaoke, that’s all it was to me.

It was okay. There were certainly some cute parts and the whole thing looked and sounded amazing. There was no decent plot, nor any good dialog. The whole thing was preachy and a bit pointless. I was disappointed.

As long as you keep in mind: it’s a cartoon, made for kids…then you will enjoy it. There is NO storyline to speak of…but your feet will be tapping as much as the penguins. Took my 4 kids today (school holidays) and they lurrrvveed it. Guess there are a couple of messages clumsily slotted in there…and the ending just came..BOOMPH!..but who cares really. Good fun. It’s like “Footloose” for penguins :)

The music stunk, the voices weren’t done well, the plot was horrible, and the message thinly veiled and wrong hearted. This movie basically says that the only reason humans would decide to save the penguins is because all of a sudden they can dance. What a load of b.s.

Oh my God. What sentimental bullshit. The acting was pretty terrible and the story was so overworked. I should have known from the tag line (“What’s your heart song”) and the fact that none of the trailers even hint at plot, but I went along anyway. The animation was amazing, but not enough to make up for an incredibly dull hour and a half, which felt like about four hours.

I was going to skip this one [dancing penguins?!?], even though I’m an animator, until a friend of mine urged me to go see it. I’m not certain if I loved the story itself, but the animation and visual style were great. [Savion Glover was the choreographer!] Animal Logic has done a lot of special effects for films, but I think this is their first feature and I’m looking forward to seeing what they do in the future.

I saw it in IMAX. Even if you are not attracted by the feel-good story, the celebrity voiceovers (Robin Williams, Nicole Kidman, et alia), or the superstar-studded foot-stomping soundtrack, the animated visual effects on the huge screen are simply incredible. Tremendous attention to detail. Stunning panoramas. And the action sequences drag you into the picture like a Antarctic rollercoaster. It’s a visual extravaganza that will not translate well, I’m afraid, onto the small screen.

Why couldn’t someone have made an animated film about cute, singing and dancing penguins that was actually for kids?

So I enjoyed the movie, and my wife enjoyed the movie, but my kids, who are six and four and were expecting to love this movie, didn’t really go for it. Most of it was over their heads. They made it through the scary parts just fine, which I was glad to see. But the penguin mating stuff, the crooning, the preening, the bumping and grinding, were all just a bit much. I don’t know what to make of a scene that begins with fuzzy penguin chicks and climaxes in an orgy of gyrating penguin bodies. Do you? How do I explain such a thing? The message seemed to be: have a beautiful body and shake your beautiful ass and you can be happy, too. What’s with that? Seems like we’ve hardly evolved beyond Cinderella.

At least Cinderella’s mice friends didn’t freak dance.

A fun movie that blends music, dancing and the life of penguins together. Robin Williams is the most notable voice lending his talent to Lovelace and Ramon with each having a number of great one-liners. The story is well thought out and is creative in how it builds upon real penguin traits (like having unique songs or collecting pebbles) and makes them the structure for a penguin society. Visually the movie is beautiful. The music is also a lot of fun with hints of Stevie Wonder, the Beatles, Queen, Elvis and Prince.

It has a couple of scary parts that are so well done that they are in fact SCARY, so the 7 and under crowd might want to cover their eyes.