Mr. Popper's Penguins

Name: Mr. Popper's Penguins
Genre: Comedy
Released: June 17, 2011
Duration: 95 min
Rating: 53
Cast: Angela Lansbury, Carla Gugino, Jim Carrey

2011

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Mixed or average reviews based on 30 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Mixed or average reviews based on 135 Ratings

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6.0	User Score Mixed or average reviews based on 135 Ratings

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Mr. Popper's Penguins

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Movie Details & Credits

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation | Release Date: June 17, 2011 | PG

Starring: Angela Lansbury, Carla Gugino, Jim Carrey

Summary: An adaptation of the beloved 1938 children's book, which won the 1939 Newbery Award. Mr. Popper is a house painter whose dreams of Arctic exploration prompt him to write letters to real explorers. One of them sends him a penguin, which he keeps in the icebox. Before he knows it, the painter has a litter of 12 beaked birds. They eatAn adaptation of the beloved 1938 children's book, which won the 1939 Newbery Award. Mr. Popper is a house painter whose dreams of Arctic exploration prompt him to write letters to real explorers. One of them sends him a penguin, which he keeps in the icebox. Before he knows it, the painter has a litter of 12 beaked birds. They eat voraciously, leading him to form Popper's Performing Penguins, a stage act that goes on tour and creates mayhem at every stop. (20th Century Fox)… Expand

Director: Mark Waters

Genre(s): Comedy

Rating: PG

Runtime: 95 min

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Critic Reviews

Peter Rainer

Jun 18, 2011

The good news is that, even though one must pace oneself through the dull parts, usually involving Mr. Popper's dullish family, he's in pretty good form whenever he's getting physical. Read full review

Owen Gleiberman

Jun 15, 2011

If you can watch Popper's most trusted penguin finally get to fly and feel like you're soaring right up there with her, then you may just let this likable trifle whisk you back to childhood. Read full review

Andrew O'Hehir

Jun 16, 2011

There's no story beyond the utterly formulaic and not the slightest semblance of realism, but your kids will enjoy it if they're young enough and pretty easy to please. Read full review

Kevin B. Lee

Jun 14, 2011

While the story is formula cornball, director Mark Waters sells it confidently, handling the unruly antarctic denizens as amiably as he handled Lindsay Lohan in his "Freaky Friday" remake and "Mean Girls." Read full review

A.O. Scott

Jun 16, 2011

There is nothing new here, but Mr. Waters, as he showed with the smarter and more daring "Mean Girls" and "Freaky Friday," knows how to keep things buzzing along. Read full review

Michael O'Sullivan

Jun 16, 2011

During the movie's awww-inducing conclusion, those of you who are allergic to cuteness - or to Jim Carrey - might want to look away. Read full review

Simon Abrams

Jun 15, 2011

If you're wondering where the Jim Carrey of "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" and "Dumb and Dumber" fame went, don't look to Mr. Popper's Penguins for answers. Read full review

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User Reviews

ReverendSin

Jun 18, 2011

Absolutely loved it, Mr. Poppers Penguins was a book I grew up with and I absolutely loved this film adaptation. Jim Carrey makes a hilarious Mr. Popper and the penguins were amazingly well done. I am a 27 year old male and wanted to see it and used it as an excuse to take my ten year oldAbsolutely loved it, Mr. Poppers Penguins was a book I grew up with and I absolutely loved this film adaptation. Jim Carrey makes a hilarious Mr. Popper and the penguins were amazingly well done. I am a 27 year old male and wanted to see it and used it as an excuse to take my ten year old goddaughter to see a movie on our weekend visit.… Expand

6 of 7 users found this helpful61

showandtell

Jan 7, 2012

How could one not like this movie? While it's all pretty predictable, Jim Carrey delivers and it's both funny and delightful. If you're looking for a movie that the whole family can enjoy together, this would be it.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

Juanolo

Apr 3, 2012

First off, I would give this a 8.75 out of 10. Great family movie. Acting is good. Jim carrey does a great job in the movie. Score is well, and sweet. Story is good as well. Overall, this is a good, nice, family movie that you and your family should watch.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

Shiira

Jul 4, 2011

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Comedy is drama in disguise. It's no wonder that the penguins stand in rapt attention at the sight of Charlie Chaplin's "The Gold Rush" playing on the television. The flightless birds sense a kindred spirit with the mustached man sporting a bowler hat and cane. Like "The Tramp", the penguins want to go home. About his craft, Chaplin once said, "Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long shot." "Mr. Popper's Penguins" knows this. When the penguins escape from their master's apartment, the silent comic's theory proves to be ever so true, as the filmmaker gives us crowd-pleasing shots of the Antarctica natives out in the city, looking adorable and full of high spirits, although the truth of the matter reflects the dichotomy embedded in Chaplin's words. These penguins, unused to the city sounds and innumerable amount of passing New Yorkers(in cars, or on foot), are undergoing a great deal of trauma, no thanks to the master's explorer father who stole them from their home at the end of the world. In an almost Chaplin-esque moment, Nimrod stops to look at a stuffed penguin(a homage to "City Lights"), which hints at the yearning this group has for their families back at Cape Royds, or some other gentoo colony. But in the meantime, Tom Popper will suffice. As surrogate parents go, he's not bad, even though the birds are being used to regain the divorcee's children's love. Because of the penguin's stature, their social anxiety, especially at the Guggenheim, gets misconstrued as comedy, which is not the case for a larger animal, like Buddy, the titular ape in the 1997 film about Trudy Lintz. Size matters. The moviegoer understands right away that the socialite's pet belongs in the wild, whereas the penguin, made human through the anthropomorphism of an enviro-propagandist doc like "March of the Penguins", as a result, seems more adaptable to civilization. To Popper's children, they're exotic lapdogs. At the museum(in a scene similar to "Buddy" where the ape goes mad at the Chicago World's Fair), the penguins abase themselves through the filmic language of slapstick comedy. While Popper tries to woo a new client, the rattled birds take advantage of the spilled water of an overturned champagne bucket by belly-sliding down the corkscrew-shaped museum layout. It's a cry for help, this seeming playfulness. The demented bunch transform the Guggenheim into a banal marine animal park. But this penguin act is filled with latent pathos. One after another, the birds utilize a sculpture as a ramp to help launch themselves over the retaining wall, landing haphazardly into the crowd below with total disregard for their own safety. It's a mass suicide attempt, played for laughs. There's a precedent for such nihilism. In "Encounters at the End of the World", the 2007 documentary about Antarctica, which features a segment on penguins(not the "fluffy" kind), filmmaker Werner Herzog elicits darker laughs from he moviegoer when he asks an ornithologist about the possibility of a gay penguin(no, but there is such a thing as penguin prostitutes; they're sluts about nesting rocks), or an insane penguin. True to Chaplin's words, the filmmaker captures a comic moment, albeit in the blackest sense, in long shot, of a penguin gone mad, as he races toward the mountains, away from the colony and feeding grounds, where his insatiable wanderlust will end in death from exhaustion and frostbite. No explanation is given for the bird's mental collapse, but in "Mr. Popper's Penguins", the first bird, Captain, sent ahead of the others, loses the egg he was put in charge of incubating, and becomes more distraught than the audience(and the movie itself) realizes. In his grief, the penguin, harboring delusions of being an eagle, leaps from a rooftop to avert capture from zoo authorities. It's only happenstance that the bird had previously entangled himself with hang-gliding equipment during the chase. Obviously, a penguin wouldn't know he has the wherewithal to fly, so his jumping, in a sense, is a decision he makes unilaterally from the anthropomorphic demands of the script(that supposes the bird knows he won't fall). To the scientists and other oddballs in the Herzog film, Antarctica is the end of the world, but to the Captain, it's simply home. As for Popper himself, he's no less crazy than Rene Russo in "Buddy". Like the "terra bus" driver at McMurdo Station who quit his cushy banking job to become a world traveler, the profit-minded realtor has the same epiphany about the world. It's not all about money. Reminiscent of "Close Encounters...", in which a man builds the Devil's Tower in the family home, Popper transforms his house into a slice of Antarctica. Like Roy, he slips into madness, choosing his obsession(saving the Captain's egg) over the family(he loses his job). Perhaps he had confused the northern lights for a close encounter of the first kind.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

W0LF3NSTE1N

Jul 17, 2021

It's a good movie if you want to have your tv playing something and you doing something else

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

lukechristiansc

Apr 9, 2014

"Jim Carey is lovely at playing mr . popper" . as always jim carey in comedies is always a jackass . It is funny but this movie is okay . sometimes carrey's comedies are funny , stupid , retarted . Grade B maybe a C+

0 of 1 users found this helpful01

moviemonger

Jul 30, 2011

Imagine a blowhard politician, a sycophant Valedictorian, or, even windbag like Charlie Sheen walking up to a podium, adjusting his tie, clearing his throat, taking a deep breath, and being reduced to simply saying, "don't see this movie."

0 of 2 users found this helpful02

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