Mr. Popper’s Penguins wants to be a family comedy about a man who inherits six penguins and learns to love life again. It mostly succeeds at being a cartoon where the adult stars are less interesting than the animated animals. Jim Carrey plays Tom Popper, a divorced businessman who gets Captain the gentoo penguin through his father’s will, then gets five more by mistake. The film is based on the 1938 children’s book, and it keeps the premise but adds a talking penguin and a live-action Henry Kelemen playing a young Tom Popper through flashbacks.
Trailer, via 20th Century Studios Philippines.
The Penguins Are the Stars
The penguins are the reason to watch. They are loud, messy, and funny in a way the human actors often fail to match. Philip Baker Hall voices Mr. Franklin, a penguin with a gruff personality, and Frank Welker provides the vocal effects. They outshine the people around them, especially when a crate of six Gentoo penguins floods a swank New York apartment with bath water.
Jim Carrey’s Problem
Carrey takes the lead, but he is not the one you keep coming back to. He plays the straight man next to the cartoon penguins, and the film does not give him much to do beyond overacting and delivering lines like “adorable” the way a man with no sense of humor would. He is better when he can act like a man who has made a terrible mistake, but the script does not always let him.
The Plot Is Simple
Tom Popper inherits the penguins, tries to send them back, and ends up keeping them. He bribes the apartment clerk to keep the penguins hidden from the board, and he lies to his children, who think the penguins are Billy’s birthday present. Nat Jones, the zookeeper, offers to take the penguins off his hands, but he has other plans. The story is thin, and it repeats itself in its middle stretch.
The Supporting Cast
Carla Gugino plays Amanda, Tom’s ex-wife. Angela Lansbury plays Mrs. Van Gundy, a neighbor who gets caught up in the chaos. Clark Gregg is Nat Jones, the zookeeper who wants the penguins for a trade. Jeffrey Tambor and David Krumholtz round out the human cast, but they do not leave much of an impression. The children, played by Madeline Carroll and Maxwell Perry Cotton, are fine, but they are mostly used as reasons for Tom to stay home instead of going to work.
The Penguin World
The film is a mix of live action and animation, and the transition between the two is smooth. The penguins move through the story as if they are real, and the film treats them like characters with their own plans. That is the film’s best trick, and it is the reason the movie’s score is 5.3 out of 10.
| Section | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director | Mark Waters |
| Screenplay | Sean Anders, John Morris, Jared Stern |
| Starring | Jim Carrey, Carla Gugino |
| Animate | Frank Welker, Philip Baker Hall |
| Budget | $55 million |
| Gross | $187.3 million |
Where It Falls Short
The film has a good setup, but it cannot sustain itself. The middle stretches are dull, and the jokes about the penguins being a nuisance get old fast. The story is also thin on character development, and the human actors never get enough depth to carry the weight of the penguins’ hijinks. The film is a good time for children, but it is a thin one for adults.
Mr. Popper’s Penguins is a good idea that was not fully turned into a good film. The penguins are the reason to watch, and they are the reason it is worth seeing. The rest of it is a mixed bag: funny in parts, thin in others. It is a film built to entertain children, and it succeeds at that. It is not a film built for grown-ups, and it does not pretend to be. The verdict is clear: the penguins are the stars of the show.
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