Mr. Popper's Penguins: My Thoughts

It wasn't too long ago that I went to see "Bridesmaids" with my friends. We had a brief talk about the film afterwards but in that talk, the movie "Mr. Popper's Penguins" cropped up. My friends agreed that it looked awful and, to an extent, I agreed with them. A film about Jim Carrey with a load of penguins didn't exactly have the same appeal as "X-Men: Origins". Hell, if it was anything other than penguins then I wouldn't give a crap about it...however, that's not the case. It is about penguins and that means I had to go and see it. Don't ask why, just know that I had to see the film. And now that I'm back home, I'm actually glad I saw it.

Criticisms out of the way first, it's not exactly complex viewing. You'd get a deeper experience reading the ingredients on the back of a packet of Super Noodles. The story alone follows a formula with previous Jim Carrey movies. Jim Carrey is a successful businessman who can talk his way into and out of any situation. Unfortunately, his wife has divorced him and his kids don't respect him any more. Before Jim loses them forever, XYZ happens and he learns a valuable lesson that'll help fix his life, [in Peter Griffin's voice] WITH HILARIOUS CONSEQUENCES!!!
In this case, XYZ is the death of his father, an explorer who leaves Jim a pet Gentoo penguin in his inheritance. When he tries to return it, there's an error in communication and he receives 5 more. After realising that he can use the penguins to get his kids to love him again (yeah), he starts to grow attached to them and gradually turns into a father figure for them, as they follow him everywhere he goes and cause plenty of mischief along the way. I'm talking about the penguins, not the kids. There's conflict in the story as well but I reckon me telling you what the conflict is will spoil the film for you, since you'll probably have an accurate guess as to how it will end if I gave the slightest plot point away.
There are also quite a lot of fart and poop jokes with the penguins. It had the children in the cinema laughing their arses off (not sure if this is an appropriate statement or not considering the reason they're laughing) but adults or teenagers who aren't a fan of toilet humour will get tired of it pretty damn quickly. That being said, each penguin has a name and a distinct personality. One of the penguins is named 'Stinky' and, yep you guessed it, farts more than any other penguin, although this actually plays into the story a few times so it's more tolerable than a bird or black guy in a fat suit that farts for nothing but cheap giggles.

These are simple complaints about the film but my biggest one is down to the film studio. It's a winter film. It's a family film with Jim Carrey and a load of penguins, it takes place at Christmas (I think), most of the outdoor scenes are in places with snow, ice, fairy lights and tinsel draped over trees. It even felt like a film you'd take kids to see in December...so why in the name of Christ was it released in the middle of fucking summer? This is the time for action or sci-fi films like "Transformers: Dark Of The Moon", "Captain America: The First Avenger" and other blockbusters. "Mr. Popper's Penguins", if you couldn't guess from the name, is 100% family material and not in the same way "Ghost Town" with Ricky Gervais was. You could get away with that in summer.
This, on the other hand, just feels bizarre. Like I said, I'm not blaming the writers or Jim Carrey's acting forcing the film studio execs to say, "Oh wow, he's so funny we should release this 4 months early!". I'm not entirely sure who is to blame or why they decided to release this film at such an unusual time. If there is a reason, I'd like to know what it is but if you do go and see this film, try not to let it affect your judgement. Believe it or not, it is actually quite good. I'm aware I may be biased due to the fact that penguins are my favourite animal but in fairness, if you're not a fan of penguins, not a parent or not under the age of 10 then you're not the target market for this film.
The penguin scenes are adorable and even though they're mostly CGI, it's beyond the passable quality of computer animation. Besides, you'd never get a real penguin to recreate a fraction of the crazy antics they get up to. So if you're tempted to see the film just to watch an hour and a half of penguins running around, making cute noises and doing...penguiny things, you'll certainly get your fill in under that amount of time. You kind of have to really, since about two fifths of it is Jim Carrey talking to his family or bosses at work without his feathery friends. Whilst I'm on the subject, Carrey is perfect for the role of Mr. Popper. As we established, the film is pretty much ideal for his range of performance although from what I've read, he wasn't the first choice.

Apparently other actors in line to play Mr. Popper were Ben Stiller (first choice but he dropped out), Owen Wilson and Jack Black. First of all, I'm very glad Jack Black didn't get the job. Not that I've gone off Jack Black but he really needs an awesome film to act in after some of the recent jobs he's taken. I'm hoping he'll go back to films aimed at teens and adults after the 3rd Tenacious D album. But more importantly, Carrey is the best choice. Ben Stiller would've worked as well, since his films tend to follow a similar structure, but I think we can all agree that Carrey is able to bring a special persona to his characters that no other actor has been able to replicate to a greater or equal extent...no American film actor, anyway.
The other cast members are great as well but when the film poster is Jim Carrey's face surrounded by a load of penguins that reads "Jim Carrey in MR. POPPER'S PENGUINS", you shouldn't expect another performance to even come close to his, especially when the closest antagonist the movie has isn't in it for more than a quarter of the film. I guess what I'm trying to say about the whole thing is that it's not horrendous and, thankfully, it isn't in fucking 3D. You may not like it as much as I did but if you like penguins or Jim Carrey, you should enjoy the film. If you don't, stay away from it. I'm not making promises along the lines of "you'll be surprised how much it works" or "it's a film for everyone".
There's a very clear audience the film is playing to. Children who still have their innocence and parents who want to turn off and stare at a screen displaying Jim Carrey dancing around with farting, squawking, sliding penguins for 90 minutes. Maybe if your taste in cinema has been turned on its head (like mine*), you'll enjoy it. MAYBE. Otherwise, I'd wait until the latest Pixar film if you want a family movie that has jokes for adults and scenes that make your eyes start to leak...not "Cars 2", the next one. Just pray you don't get a screen with parents who thought it'd be a smart idea to take toddlers and babies to see a film. Seriously parents that were in Guildford today, they start wailing and crying if they see an advert they don't like, why the shit did you think they'd react well to loud, howling penguins in a dark room?


* Fuck you, "In Bruges".