It stars the voices of Elijah Wood, Robin Williams, Brittany Murphy, Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Hugo Weaving, Anthony LaPaglia, Magda Szubanski and Steve Irwin.

Set in the cold land of Antarctica, the film follows Mumble (Wood), an emperor penguin who is able to tap dance brilliantly despite lacking the ability to sing a heartsong to attract a soulmate.

After being continuously ridiculed and rejected by peers and his own father (Jackman), Mumble departs on a journey to learn what is causing the local fish population to decline — and to find himself along the way.

However, Warner Bros., the film's production company, was on too tight of a budget to release Happy Feet in IMAX digital 3D.

A sequel, Happy Feet Two, was released in 2011, and failed to match the critical and commercial success of the original film.

One day, Mumble encounters a group of hostile skua, with a leader who is tagged with a yellow band, which he says is from an alien abduction.

Mumble exhaustingly pursues it alone, eventually washing up on the shore of Florida, where he is rescued and kept at Marine World with Magellanic penguins.

The entire colony engages in dance in front of the research team, whose expedition footage prompts a worldwide debate, which eventually leads to the banning of all Antarctic overfishing, satisfying both the emperor penguins and the Amigos.

As an initial inspiration for the film, George Miller cited an encounter with a grizzled old cameraman whose father was Frank Hurley of the Shackleton expeditions, during the shooting of Mad Max 2.

[8] In 2001, during an otherwise non-sequitur meeting, Doug Mitchell impulsively presented Warner Bros. studio president Alan Horn with an early rough draft of the film's screenplay, and asked them to read it while he and Miller flew back to Australia.

Production was slated to begin sometime after the completion of the fourth Mad Max film Fury Road, but geopolitical complications pushed Happy Feet to the forefront in early 2003.

[10] Happy Feet needed an enormous group of computers, and Animal Logic worked with IBM to build a server farm with sufficient processing potential.

"[12] The film is dedicated to the memory of Nick Enright, Michael Jonson, Robby McNeilly Green and Steve Irwin.

Happy Feet is a jukebox musical, taking previously recorded songs and working them into the film's soundtrack to fit the mood of the scene or character.

[14] Prince enjoyed the film, gave his approval for the use of "Kiss" and offered to write an original song for the production, which he completed a week later.

The film opened at number one in the United States on its first weekend of release (17–19 November), grossing $41.6 million and beating Casino Royale for the top spot.

In total, the film was the top grosser for three weeks, a 2006 box-office feat matched by only Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.

The site's consensus reads: "Visually dazzling, with a thoughtful storyline and catchy musical numbers, Happy Feet marks a successful animated debut from the makers of Babe.

Baumgarten also said that the CGI recreation of Antarctica is "stunning, allowing the film to shift among glorious long shots of the ice and penguin population and midshots and close-ups of the character interactions".

[28][29] On a technical or formal level, the film has also been recognised for its innovative introduction of Miller's roving style of subjective cinematography into contemporary animation.

Happy Feet was released on home media on 27 March 2007,[30] in the United States in three formats: DVD (in separate widescreen and pan-and-scan editions), Blu-ray, and an HD DVD/DVD combo pack.

[32] Among the DVD's special features is a scene that was cut from the film, in which Mumble meets a blue whale and an albatross while pursuing the fishing boat.

It retells the condensed story of Happy Feet with the help of 3D projection and sensory effects, including moving seats, wind, mist and scents.