Farce of the Penguins (2006)

A mockumentary that illuminates penguin survival and mating rituals, as well as one bird's search for love while on a seventy-mile trek with his hedonistic buddies.

Director:

Bob Saget

Writer:

Bob Saget

Stars:

Samuel L. Jackson, Alyson Hannigan, Bob Saget

Cast

Credited cast:
Samuel L. Jackson	...	Narrator (voice)
Alyson Hannigan	...	Hottie Penguin (voice)
Bob Saget	...	Carl (voice)
Brie Larson	...	I Need a Z-Pack Penguin (voice)
Carlos Mencia	...	Juan Sanchez (voice)
Dave Coulier	...	There's No Snow Penguin (voice)
John Stamos	...	What's Global Warming Penguin (voice)
Jodie Sweetin	...	He's So Gross Penguin (voice)
Lori Loughlin	...	Melvin-Smacking Penguin (voice)
Jason Biggs	...	Insecure Penguin (voice)
Jim Belushi	...	They're Aall Bitches Penguin (voice) (as James Belushi)
Whoopi Goldberg	...	Helen (voice)
Damon Wayans	...	Hey, That's My Ass! Penguin (voice)
Drea de Matteo	...	Ester (voice)
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Jason Alexander	...	Penguin on Belly (voice)

Storyline

In this spoof of "March of the Penguins," nature footage of penguins near the South Pole gets a soundtrack of human voices. Carl and Jimmy, best friends, walk 70 miles to the mating grounds where the female penguins wait. The huddled masses of females - especially Melissa and Vicki - talk about males, mating, and what might happen this year. Carl, Jimmy, and the other males make the long trek talking about food, fornication and flatulence. Until this year, Carl's sex life has been dismal, but he falls hard for Melissa. She seems to like him. A crisis develops when Jimmy comes upon something soft in the dark. Can friends forgive? Does parenthood await Carl and Melissa?

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Plot Keywords:

penguin | spoof | south pole | march | flatulence | 

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Taglines:

What Happens In Antarctica... Stays in Antarctica

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Genres:

Animation | Comedy

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for pervasive crude sexual content and language

Details

Official Sites:

Official site

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

22 February 2007 (Iceland)

Also Known As:

A Farsa dos Pinguins

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

THINKFilm, Permut Presentations, Two Angels Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

80 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Gilbert Gottfried and Scott Weinger also appeared in Aladdin (1992).

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Goofs

Neither Arctic Foxes nor Arctic Owls occur in Antarctica. The same is true of several species of penguins shown.

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Quotes

Online Penguin: [just got rejected by a female penguin] Is it because my breath smells like ass?

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Crazy Credits

No penguins were harmed during the making of this film. However, one of our editors, and we won't say which one, kept a human head in his mini-refrigerator the entire time he was editing this picture.

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Connections

Spoofs The Sixth Sense (1999)

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Soundtracks

No More Baby
Performed by Disco Blue (feat. Baby)
Written by Bergsenson & Daniele Torrente
Courtesy of LoveCat Music
Published by Big Tiger Music (BMI)

User Reviews

Nearly nonexistent humor ruins what could have been a fun parody

When I first started this movie I had high hopes. The first five minutes seemed quite funny with Samuel L. Jackson's narration and the promising all-star cast. I assumed the reason few people liked this was because it had a sort of "stupid" sense of humor as seen in movies like Kung Pow that few people appreciated. Unfortunately, even with so many big names in this movie, it was difficult to find any humor at all in this.

The majority of the movie revolved around Bob Saget and Lewis Black's characters chatting back and forth about walking far and finding a mate. What made the movie bad wasn't its juvenile sense of humor, but rather the lack of overall jokes. What was shown was simply Bob Saget reenacting his job as host of America's Funniest Home Videos when he used to provide voiceovers to the five second clips in order to make them only slightly more amusing. But considering there isn't much amusing about penguins in the first place, Saget couldn't do much to make it funnier than the thoughts everyone with any sense of humor whatsoever was thinking while watching March of the Penguins.

I'll admit that the horrid editing didn't make me dislike the movie as much as the humor, but it is definitely worth mentioning that it had to have been done by someone with no real experience in the editing field. For example, when one penguin farts in the movie, a large transparent red circle appears near it. I don't know what the editor was trying to do to make the fart more visible by using a red circle. Had they added in something like a green colored gas effect, it would have been more appealing. Another example is how some of the clips blatantly reverse themselves to stay on screen while the actors talk. Very little effort was put into this movie, though considering how little the makers had to do (Nearly all the footage was cheap stock footage), they must have made a fortune by spending so little money on this.

The reason I didn't give this a score of 1 was because I'll admit that I did laugh a few times, and I appreciate that the movie recognized itself as a bad movie, like when penguins from the March of the Penguins scoff at how dumb the humor is, when the writers are depicted as a monkey banging on a typewriter, and when Samuel L. Jackson apologizes for not having the budget to make the penguins' mouths move. Still, I would not recommend this movie to anyone, regardless of their sense of humor.