Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011) - Waters and Carrey's great family movie

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1 Time Film Excess Nominee:


Best Score: Rolfe Kent (lost to Cliff Martinez for Drive)

Jim Carrey's mug and 6 cutesy penguins on the poster for Mark Waters' Mr. Popper's Penguins

QUICK REVIEW:

When Tom Popper was a boy, his father neglected him from all the different corners of the world. Now Popper is close to repeating the flaw in his own divorced family, as his father dies and sends his son one last souvenir: 6 penguins.

I honestly thought Mr. Popper's Penguins looked a little stupid, and so I went to see it with low expectations. - Which the film completely put to shame!
Jim Carrey (Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994)) is in great form, wildly enthusiastic and energetic; Madeline Carroll (Machine Gun Preacher (2011)) and Maxwell Perry Cotten (Elysium (2013)) are good as the children; Carla Gugino (Faster (2010)), Philip Baker Hall (Zodiac (2007)), Dominic Chianese (The Sopranos (1999-07)) and, in a funny part, Angela Lansbury (Blue Hawaii (1961)) complete the fine ensemble.
Nearly the whole film plays with a magnificent 78 piece orchestra score by Rolfe Kent (Up in the Air (2009)). Mr. Popper's Penguins is a positive, touching and contemporary story about making the right priorities and the importance of family. Additionally, it is a fun New York movie with scenes in the Guggenheim and with villains from the New York Zoo (!).
The script is written by Sean Anders and John Morris (We're the Millers (2013), both) and Jared Stern (The Internship (2013)), based on the 1938 children's book of the same name by Richard and Florence Atwater. Mark Waters (Mean Girls (2004)) has directed the film.

Related posts:

Mark Waters: 2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
Mean Girls (2004) - Lohan, Waters and Fey's high school satire triumph

If you're a Jim Carrey fan, you shouldn't miss this family movie treat! Watch the trailer here

Cost: 55 mil. $
Box office: 187.3 mil. $
= Box office success
[The film got a lukewarm reception in the US by audiences and critics alike; it opened #3, behind Green Lantern and Super 8 (both lesser films, quality-wise) and grossed 68.2 mil. $ (36 % of the total gross) in the US. But Carrey's name and the inclusion of the cute penguins rescued the great film on the global stage.]

What do you think of Mr. Popper's Penguins?