Any misconceptions about Happy Feet - namely, that it’s a saccharine-heavy money grab living on the tuxedo tails of March of the Penguins - should be checked at the refreshments stand on the way into the movie. In production for four years, starting about the same time that March began filming, George Miller’s CGI flick is about more than just exploiting America’s newfound love for the curious cold-weather birds. Nor is it about throwing in a few adult themes into a kid’s movie so that parents can tolerate an hour and a half in uncomfortable theatre seats surrounded by squirming children. Indeed, for all of its cute moments - and there are plenty to be had - Happy Feet asks you to reconsider your position on the power of animated films and challenges you to take notice of the way we are treating our world.

Of course, any broad political statement would be unheard if Miller didn’t wrap it in a snug blanket of animated adventure, and we get it courtesy of Mumble (voiced by Elijah Wood), a young emperor penguin plagued with the inability to sing and thus unable to attract a mate (specifically Brittany Murphy’s Gloria) by singing his “heart song.” But what Mumble lacks vocally he makes up for in dancing ability. This embarrasses his father (Hugh Jackman as Memphis) and confuses his mother (Norma Jean, via Nicole Kidman), but the most extreme reaction comes from the penguin elders, led by Hugo Weaving’s Noah, who connect Mumble’s dancing with a recent famine and banish him from their piece of ice. Mumble begins a journey of self-acceptance, where he learns about the dangers of the Antarctic and encounters new friends in the form of a different penguin “race,” two very important figures of which are voiced by Robin Williams.

One of Williams’ characters is Lovelace, a self-proclaimed prophet who claims contact with aliens (humans) and has the plastic rings of a six pack stuck around his neck to prove it. Mumble takes Lovelace’s predicament as a cue to search out the human camp and ask them to stop eating all the damn fish.

This sets the movie on a tangent about environmentalism, a not entirely unwelcome bait-and-switch. The first hour-plus of Happy Feet gives you all the toe-tapping entertainment you could want after seeing the trailers, but those who haven’t gone into a crash after their sweetness high will be intrigued, if not completely moved, by the B-plot. The transition is clunky, and might leave most viewers confused, but it adds substance to the movie that sticks with you after the memories of “dancing penguin! voiced by Elijah Wood!” have subsided. The activist edge is so spot-on and timely, in fact, that the late Steve Irwin lent his voice to an elephant seal who preaches the beauty of nature.

Captured with chilling realism, Happy Feet takes you into a believable Antarctica without all those worries about frostbite. More impressively, the film manages to capture the penguins realistically while adding the right amount of expression. This balancing act - between real and CGI, between musical comedy and activist propaganda - is something to be admired, even if you were only there to see the dancing penguins.

Rating: * * * 1/2 of 5

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