Comedy…is there no end to it? Not in my house, apparently. The most recent comedic piece of enjoyment came in the form of the 2007 spoof The Farce of the Penguins.
Basically this movie consists of scenes from The March of the Penguins (and presumably a few extra scenes not from that film) and tells the tale of male penguins trekking inland from their yearly feed on their way to rejoin the females and make some eggs…and, understandably, these males have sex on the brain. Some even get lost and end up in areas with no snow and sit cussing out global warming.
Of course even after they reach the females there can still be problems concerning overly excited friends who didn’t find a mate, as one penguin found out in the middle of the night following the mating. There can also be problems with thug seals barring the way to the breeding grounds, overly judgmental females, and the occasional penguin that gets eaten. Whatever physical or emotional problem these little critters can get into, they do.
Narrating this fun little romp in the snow is Samuel L. Jackson who heads a host of big-name voices including writer/director Bob Saget (and his Full House co-stars John Stamos, David Coulier and Jodie Sweetin), Whoopi Goldberg, Jon Lovitz, Damon Wayans, Jason Biggs, Alyson Hannigan, Gilbert Gottfried, Dane Cook, Jim Belushi, Jason Alexander, Lewis Black, Carlos Mencia and many many more. In other words, some of the biggest names in comedy have come together for this movie…even if some of them are only around for a line or two. The makers of this movie seem to have taken great pains not to have any two penguins with the same voice.
Despite the somewhat aimless and wandering style of the movie it was actually pretty entertaining…if just to see how some of these big names did as penguin voices. I was pretty skeptical when I first hear what this movie was…redoing and voicing over The March of the Penguins…because it sounded much like a game my other half and his friends play when they’re bored. They mute the TV and surf the channels giving voices to the people on the screen in some of the raunchiest ways possible. I was right in that a lot of it is pretty much the same thing, but you’ll be happy to know that these actors are considerably better with this scripted piece than the aforementioned group of immature-at-heart guys who just goof around with it.
If you’re looking for a few laughs this is a pretty good choice, be warned that there’s not much of a story here but it’s better than most of the recent comedies I’ve had the fortune (though good or bad fortune depends on the movie) to watch.
Overall this is one of the most mindless options you can get for an evening in that’s still funny and there’s plenty of off-color humor to go around, but still done very well and hilarious if you can suspend any thinking until afterward. All-in-all a pretty decent comedy that’ll give the brain a well-deserved (we assume, anyway) rest.
