A family film of pleasant predictability but no great originality, Mr. Popper’s Penguins is likely exactly what one would expect it to be: improvisational comedian Jim Carrey spending ninety minutes acting and reacting to a collection of real and CGI penguins surrounded by a conventional, rather bland story of a broken family becoming reunited through their affection for their feathered friends. Efforts to spice up the original award-winning children’s book insert the expected fart and poop jokes right on cue, and Jim Carrey turning sticky sweet and gooey is never a good thing.
Mr. Popper’s Penguins (Blu-ray Combo Pack)
Directed by Mark Waters
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Year: 2011
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 1080p AVC codec
Running Time: 94 minutes
Rating: PG
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 English; Dolby Digital 5.1 French, Spanish
Subtitles: SDH, Spanish
Region: A
MSRP: $39.99
Release Date: December 6, 2011
Review Date: December 6, 2011
The Film
2.5/5
Ace real estate agent Tom Popper (Jim Carrey) is a whiz at closing properties in New York City, but he’s daily becoming more and more alienated from his two young children Billy (Maxwell Perry Cotton) and Janie (Madeline Carroll), much to the displeasure of his ex-wife Amanda (Carla Gugino). His long absentee father dies and sends him a legacy, six penguins from Antarctica all with their own quirky character traits whose well-being depends on his taking time away from landing an important property from Mrs. Van Gundy (Angela Lansbury) and instead tending to the very specific and demanding needs of his new charges. With this new-found caring, however, comes a new respect from his own abandoned family, and he starts to get closer to his son, daughter, and ex-wife but now at the risk of losing his job where he had hoped to be promoted to partner.
The adaptation of the original book by Sean Anders, John Morris, and Jared Stern is rather unremarkable, and the penguins bringing humanity back to the shark-like Tom Popper is a facile story with all of the expected bumps in the road both with his work and home lives. Subtle touches add some fun to the mix: Popper’s alliterative-prone secretary Pippi (Ophelia Lovibond) is delightful and doesn’t wear out her one-joke existence, switching the setting of the story to New York adds the color and faster pace of the city to aid in the storytelling, and while the story becomes ever more absurd (Tom’s apartment becomes a literal icy hockey rink to accommodate the birds), there’s a simple joy with what everyone is doing that brings the project some needed good will. Director Mark Waters stages one superb sequence: at a fund-raising gala at the Guggenheim Museum, the penguins arrive uninvited (naturally) and create the kind of slapstick lunatic havoc that family members of all ages can appreciate. Elsewhere, though, his direction is rather pedestrian allowing the story to dawdle and hitting the expected notes of Tom’s realization and determination with sledgehammer obviousness. Perhaps the daunting task of having to work with the combination of the live action and CGI penguins took so much preparation and shooting time that everything else had to take a back seat. Still, the movie seems a bit longer than it actually is.
Jim Carrey’s transformation from savage go-getter to sweet, committed dad is the kind of old-fashioned role he would have scoffed at a decade ago, but here he is playing his newly hatched father with treacly wide grins and not a hint of irony, and it’s something of an eye-opener. He throws in some bits of wild and crazy just to remind us of the Carrey of old, but by the second half of the film, he’s a Carrey with a soft, chewy center that barely resembles the gifted comic artist who made The Truman Show and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind so memorable. Angela Lansbury makes all of her scenes count as the elderly Mrs. Van Gundy who holds some secrets of her own close to her vest. Clark Gregg is the film’s nominal villain, a zookeeper who has his own plans for the penguins, and he’s reliably effective as are Ophelia Lovibond as the helpful Pippi, David Krumholtz as a nosy neighbor curious to know what all that noise is that’s coming from Popper’s apartment, and Desmin Borges who steals all of his scenes as the subtly blackmailing desk clerk Daryl at Popper’s apartment building.
Video Quality
5/5
The film is presented in its theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and is offered in 1080p using the AVC codec. Filmed on digital video, the picture is super sharp and offers a gorgeous series of shots of New York City in the winter with lots of detail to be seen. So clear is it, in fact, that one can often easily distinguish the real penguins from the digitally transmitted ones and notice fake snow from the real thing. Flesh tones are natural and color overall is wonderfully saturated. Black levels are impressive. The film has been divided into 24 chapters.
Audio Quality
4/5
The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 sound mix contains some expansive surround moments but not nearly enough for a film taking place in the heart of New York City in the winter. Rolfe Kent’s music score gets a full treatment into the available channels, and dialogue has been well recorded and been placed firmly in the center channel.
Special Features
4/5
The audio commentary is provided by director Mark Waters, film editor Bruce Green, and CGI specialist Richard Hollander. They have an amiable conversation about the making of the film, pointing out when real penguins are present and when they aren’t, and commenting generously on their talented cast and the wonderful New York locations.
All of the bonus material is presented in 1080p.
Nimrod and Stinky’s Antarctic Adventure is a fairly uninteresting 6 ¼-minute animated feature with two of the more noteworthy penguins from the bunch doing their best to continue to outwit zookeeper Nat Jones once they’re returned to the South Pole.
“The Legacy of Mr. Popper’s Penguins” offers a history of original authors Richard and Florence Atwater who won the 1939 Newbury Medal for their original children’s book. It runs 4 minutes.
“Ready for Their Close-Up” is an 8 ½-minute featurette detailing the difficulty of working with live penguins and the efforts it took to get them to work on cue and hit marks during filming and especially focuses on how well Jim Carrey worked with the animals.
“Ladies and Gentoomen” is a quick 6-minute informative vignette about penguins and their habitat and how that had to be accommodated for the movie.
“Stuffy Penguin Theater” shows how stuffed penguin dolls were used to help block action that would later be supplemented with CGI-created penguins. This runs 4 ¼ minutes.
“Penguin Pandemonium” takes one scene from the movie and shows us how it was done from original blocking with the “stuffies” through the varying permutations until getting to the final shot in the film. This lasts 3 ¼ minutes.
The original story sampler offers the first three chapters of the original book Mr. Popper’s Penguins in screen-sized pages which the family can read together to see if checking out the original book is of interest.
The film’s gag reel runs 2 minutes.
There are twelve deleted scenes which may be viewed separately or in one 14 ½-minute segment. Commentary by the three gentlemen in the audio commentary may be optionally turned on or off.
The film’s theatrical trailer runs 1 ¼ minutes.
The disc is BD-Live ready, but there was no material on the web that wasn’t also present on this Blu-ray disc.
The disc contains promo trailers for Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, Marley & Me: The Puppy Years, and Tooth Fairy 2.
The second disc in the set is the DVD copy of the movie.
The third disc in the set is the digital copy of the movie with enclosed instructions for installation on PC and Mac devices.
In Conclusion
3/5 (not an average)
An innocuous family film of no great distinction but of predictable satisfaction, Mr. Popper’s Penguins looks and sounds great on Blu-ray. A generous selection of bonus material completes the package.
Matt Hough
Charlotte, NC
