FARCE OF THE PENGUINS

SYNOPSIS:
Two penguins, Carl (Bob Saget) and Jimmy (Lewis Black) join their fellow males in the annual mating ritual to the breeding grounds for some hot penguin 'lovin'.

Review by Andrew L. Urban:
So if it's not animation how come the actors are never seen? Because the penguins are real; lots of footage of real penguins is edited under the script and narration. And no, their beaks don't move. The dialogue is meant to be hilarious, all hipness and coolness, lots of jive and very human crudeness. Even the narration, delivered dead pan by Samuel L. Jackson, prepares us for the tone, with introductory remarks about it being so cold in the Antarctic where the penguins are that you need to grow your pubic hair long to use as a scarf - only expressed in much cruder terms.

The concept relies entirely on dialogue - which means there is a lot of it. Non stop talk. For that to work, the writing has to be truly inventive and comedic. Sometimes that's a challenge too far for the filmmakers. The idea would have worked better as a 7 minute sketch comedy on YouTube.

Then there is the owl, Steve (voice of Jonathan Katz), playing the role of shrink, with whom the penguin chums converse about life's problems. Again, the bird is just an owl, photographed doing what it does. I must admit, the editing is clever in its insinuation of body and beak movements, spurring on our imaginations to synch the words to the action. Beyond that, it's a thin idea stretched even thinner, but undergraduates and young males with time on their hands will no doubt find it entertaining.