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Happy Feet is the story of a tap-dancing penguin. So far, so adorably cute. But before you rush to the box office, be warned: it's also one of the oddest computer animated tales ever made. At first glance, this looks like your regulation kiddie fare: cuddly animals, big star voices (Elijah Wood, Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman and so on). What you actually get is a bewildering combination of anthropomophic perversity and environmental polemic, all scored to cheesy pop hits.

Happy Feet is so very, very weird that it's hard to know where to start. It's as if the filmmakers watched March Of The Penguins and said to each other: "You know what this really needs? Disco." The first surprise is the animation, which renders the penguins borderline photorealistic. Fair enough, but when these extremely lifelike critters start singing modern R&B medleys sprinkled with old school hip-hop, the mind goes into overboggle. Stranger still, they all belong to some repressive religious cult, complete with growling penguin elders and compulsory Pingu-worshipping. They behave like penguins (at one point, Nicole Kidman delicately regurgitates into her offspring's mouth), but they talk like the Amish branch of the Motown Appreciation Society.

"SENDS THE MIND INTO OVERBOGGLE"

Our hero, Mumbles Happyfeet (Wood) is a fabulous dancer but can't sing. Because of this, he's ostracised from his chums and embarks on a quest to discover where all the fish have gone. He's accompanied by a coterie of Mexican mini-penguins (no, really) and a penguin mystic played by Robin Williams (Williams has two roles in Happy Feet, which is two more than he should be allowed). Then without warning, the whole film turns into an environmental cautionary tale of serious bleakness, capped off with a spectacular Busby Berkely song and dance number. It's absolutely bonkers, but undeniably original.