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For at least half of its running time, Happy Feet is the usual crapola animated feature, this one about a penguin (voiced by Elijah Wood) whose tap-dancing prowess freaks out his fellow flightless fowl. Like many mediocre toon flicks, it features saccharine characters, sterile CGI imagery, lazy stereotypes that border on racist, and way too much Robin Williams (playing not one, not two, but three characters).

But a strange and wonderful thing happens deep into the film. It dispenses with the fun and games and becomes a sober reflection on the harm that humans are causing to the environment and to our ice-capped friends in particular. The movie morphs into one of the coolest Twilight Zone episodes never made, and for a brief, glorious second, I thought it was going to end at the most opportune moment, delivering its themes with all the force of a sledgehammer on an egg shell.

But no. The film recovers from its momentary brilliance and soon is back on its preordained path to a happy ending -- albeit one that still keeps its relevant message intact. The end result is decent fare -- even if it often plays like a revision of the strikingly similar FernGully: The Last Rainforest -- but it passed on the opportunity to be so much more.