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• Robin Williams

Happy screening of 'Happy Feet'

The TOMB checks out 20 minutes of what looks like an animated gem.

Jul  5 2006

I went to an advance screening of 20 minutes from Warner Bros forthcoming family feature 'Happy Feet' earlier today, and was suitably impressed by what I saw.

Not just because the animation was fantastic, the music funky and the gags laugh-out-loud funny, but also because it touched a nerve deep within my vocal chords.

You see, as I've said before on this very site, I've never been able to sing. When I open my voice to let rip, it sounds like a small boy trapped in a lift crying for help. I'm still haunted by visions of a multitude of laughing faces when I auditioned for a school musical many moons ago, and as for the pain that karaoke bars have caused me over the years…don't even go there.

And 'Happy Feet' is an animated fable that tells the tale of Mumble, a young penguin who suffers from just such a condition.

Only the problem is much, much more serious for Mumble as his community lives to sing, belting out tunes from sunrise to sunset. And in spite of the fact that Mumble can tap-dance like Fred Astaire on ice, he finds himself growing up as something of an outsider, being isolated and humiliated by his contemporaries.

The film then then follows the typical animated journey of self-discovery as Mumble hunts for the inner penguin, but what seems to raise 'Happy Feet' above the usual animated fare is some genuinely gob-smacking animation, and a vocal performance from Robin Williams that is nothing less than a show-stopper.

Playing the leader of a pack of scene-stealing Latino penguins (as well as a Barry White-esque love guru called Lovelace), he gives a typically manic, over-the-top and hilarious performance, and from the footage I saw, his vocals will be worth the price of admission alone.

We'll have more on this one later in the year, but put December 8 in your diary now, as when 'Happy Feet' hits screens, you won't want to miss it.