Movie review: ‘Mr. Popper’s Penguins’ a cute, cool summer escape
One of Jim Carrey’s best qualities as a movie actor is his ability to be kid-friendly and deeply subversive at the same time. It’s a quality he brings in spades to “Mr. Popper’s Penguins,” a serviceable updating of Richard and Florence Atwater’s 1938 children’s book that attempts the tricky family-film two-step of catering to young audiences while being just edgy enough to keep adult chaperones from getting bored silly.
Thanks to Carrey’s antic, human-cartoon clowning (for the kids), leavened by his anti-authoritarian puckishness (for grown-ups), this squeaky clean family entertainment just manages to hit the sweet spot between generations without being too childish or too cynical.
As a grade-school reading staple for seven decades, the Atwaters’ Newbery Award-winning tale should be familiar to most moviegoers, regardless of age. But, in the hands of director Mark Waters (“Mean Girls,” “Freaky Friday”) and a trio of screenwriters, the book’s small-town literary quaintness and its casting of Mr. Popper as a poor house painter get a radical jolt of modern urban mania.
Now set in hustle-bustle Manhattan, the screenplay features Carrey as Tom Popper, a silver-tongued acquisitions ace for a soulless, go-go real-estate firm. Popper’s specialty: sweet talking old-line owners into selling their landmark properties (such as the Flatiron Building), so his bosses can bulldoze them and erect huge glass towers in their place.
With the aid of his hyper-efficient, alliterative assistant Pippa (a cute-funny Ophelia Lovibond), who inexplicably peppers all her pronouncements with P-words, Popper has now set his sights on the venerable Tavern on the Green and its protective dowager owner, Mrs. Van Gundy (Angela Lansbury in a no-stretch role).
Meanwhile, the hard-charging Popper’s personal life is a shambles. His two generic kids (Maxwell Perry Cotton and Madeline Carroll) have adolescent issues and don’t want to spend weekends with him. His estranged wife (Carla Gugino) has a new, touchy-feely New Age boyfriend (James Tupper). And his long-absent explorer father has died and bequeathed him a mysterious crate from Antarctica.
That shipment, it turns out, is a life changer. Waddling forth from this wooden crate are six cute, mischievous emperor penguins, which quickly turn Popper’s world upside down.
Forced to care for these curious tuxedoed creatures (eventually he even turns his sleek bachelor high-rise condo into a winter wonderland), Popper must rethink his business priorities, reconnect with his children and his skeptical wife, and take away a profound lesson in family values from his globe-hopping father.
Carrey is fine and typically hyper as the reluctant penguin poppa, but not surprisingly every human in the cast is hopelessly upstaged by the gaggle of adorable penguins (real penguins were used in most scenes, with CGI penguins standing in for some stunts).
As a result, Carrey and his shuffling co-stars are a good bet to tickle any youngsters who fell for the peripatetic animated penguins of “Madagascar” and “Happy Feet.” Adults, more likely to prefer the National Geographic heft of “March of the Penguins,” might be inclined to give this bland, predictable picture a chillier reception. Still, if “Mr. Popper’s Penguins” don’t exactly take flight they do offer a reasonably diverting multiplex respite from the summer heat.
- Dennis King
“Mr. Popper’s Penguins”
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