Thank you Jesus. Thank you Allah. Thank you Buddha. And thank you any other supernatural deity for the gift that is Mr Poppers Penguins. I thank thee not that it is good for it is just as average a film one would expect from the grubby mauls of the Twentieth Century Fox marketing department, but I thank thee for the animals talk not!
That's right, the penguins that Mr Popper (Jim Carrey) looks after in his lavish Manhattan apartment do not talk. Ever. Yep, there's the odd bit of CGI to give each of his six pets distinct personalities (one bites, another shouts, another farts, etc) but not one of those feather cussers utters a single word throughout the film. And that is something to be celebrated. That means the screen writers can focus on the human characters and produce something much more relateable than those sodding chipmunks.
Unfortunately, that opportunity is never exploited. While it has the same old plot of asshole, career obsessed father reconnecting emotionally with his divorced wife (the lovely Carla Guigino) and two kids the character arc the screenplay places Carrey on is not that resonant. Popper is not that big a dick to begin with and the obstacles placed in his way to achieve new found happiness are not that terrible, meaning the emotional journey we're asked to embark on is not that riveting. In someways you could argue that by having emotional restraint it's not pandering to the lowest common denominator family crowd, and that's admirable, but it sure makes for one dull story.
But the film isn't irritating, Carrey is playful which is always a good thing in his films and Brit Ophelia Lovibond is a scene stealer with her obsessive prim pronunciation of the letter P. Probably the best animals movie for kids in 2011 but I'd still rather take 'em to see Thor!
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