The Penguin Lessons is fun but ultimately not engaging enough

Regal Edwards Aliso Theatre. Lydia Denk | Lariat.

My friend was turning 22, so for her birthday we went and saw the new movie: The Penguin Lessons. The plot of The Penguin Lessons is that a man named Tom Mitchell finds a penguin while he is in Argentina, and then later brings it back to his hotel. When the man heads back to Southern England, where he teaches English lessons to his students, he does not want the penguin anymore, but the penguin follows him.

He later tries to return the penguin to the zoo, but the zoo is not able to take the penguin, so the penguin stays with him. Over time, he and the penguin form a wholesome and comedic bond.

The Penguin Lessons is a very light-hearted and comedic movie. It plays on a made-up scenario about how someone could find something unordinary, and how that unordinary can then become a daily occurrence. I liked the worldliness of this movie, because it starts out in Argentina, and then when the man travels to other places, you can see a lot of places from just watching the movie.

The comedic element in this movie is great as well! The students become addicted to the feeling of getting to feed the penguin, which is really sweet! I also really like the fact that the man and the penguin bond. They learn how to coexist together, and while the man originally wants to return the penguin to the zoo, he ends up liking the penguin.

The plot was a little incomplete, in that while the creators had a good idea about the man bonding with the penguin, it almost got confusing what the overall point of the penguin was. The penguin didn’t help the students grow in any way, and there was no personal development.

The creators could have taken it deeper by incorporating a personal element. A movie in which the personal development element is incorporated would, for example, be Freedom Writers. In that movie, the teacher invests herself into each of the students’ personal lives. I found this movie more fulfilling, because it felt like the movie had more of a central theme.

The characters were okay, but that they also lacked depth. I think they were interesting, but could have used more development/background. Also, the plotline with one of the characters Sophia, getting arrested in the end, feels like it was kind of unfinished.

The animation in this movie was overall, also very good. It seamlessly blended the CGI and live action elements in a satisfying and natural way.

I would probably recommend this movie to people ages 12 and up because of some sexual references that occur in the hotel when he travels to Argentina.

The film was overall light-hearted and humorous, but there were parts that were a bit hard to stay invested in. While the film did convey the overall message, I felt it would have been more engaging by adding more twists or complexity.

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