Penguin Highway

So Penguin Highway is certainly one of the most fascinating movies that I've seen in a while. This was a movie that I knew absolutely nothing about but it had penguins in the title so I was expecting penguins but what I wasn't expecting was to be taken on an absolutely beautiful journey that really got me in the feels and had me crying a few times because this movie gets heavy at times and gets very suspenseful in the 3rd act. Now this movie breaks the cuteness meter whenever the penguins are on screen. The opening credits of Penguin Highway had a smile on my face, I can recommend this movie to anyone who wants a movie that is absolutely visually stunning.

Thank you Tubi:

A smart boy and the rest of his town suddenly see penguins popping up all over the place, and soon the older woman who works as a dentist with who he has a crush/strong friendship with, and it turns out she most likely has something to do with all of this!

For a debut film by Hiroyasu Ishida, who previously worked as a director and in the animation department on a few shorts and even the film MFKZ, this is amazing; in fact he does something throughout this film that I'm surprised I haven't seen anywhere else, even Makoto Shinkai, and that's having these really amazing i-depth shots that feel very cinematic, more-so than usual. He has this truck to where the shots almost feel like moving paintings, its a combination of the aspect ratio, the depth of field in the shot, the little extra 3d shading they add in bits, I hope you'll be able to see it as I did, some shots just really stand out as something extraordinary.

And this story is a very intriguing one and I wanted to find out what was going on, and the characters are great, the boy is a genius but is also kind of stoic, he never gets mad or has outbursts and keeps his voice at an almost dull kind of explanatory droll (lol), and the lady whom he gets involved with his lovely and also very hot; like damn they really did give her a nice rack! and yes it is something the boy obsesses over too, there's even a scene where he and his friend are eating these cakes that are shaped like breasts and he has a quick rant about it. And exploring on that point a bit more the movie does have its instances of "oh damn I wasn't expecting that!", the kind of humor you'd see in a college frat film from the 2000s; like there's a running gag where the boy gets out of situations by grabbing people firmly by the nuts and making them scream, and there's a scene where the bully of the film tears up the kid's map...then pisses on it (showing the stream) and I was like "damn, hardcore movie!".

What you think starts as a simple mystery turns into a big science fiction tale that talks about the universe and possibly outer beings, but I'm not gonna spoil anything, I'll just say the progression of the stakes is great and it played out in a way I wasn't expecting. All wrapping up in an ending that made me feel all warm and snuggly inside, check this out on Tubi.

What a lovely movie. It was so beautiful and so surreal, couldn't love it more.

An odd but incredibly charming coming-of-age story that explores the desire to grow up sooner rather than later and combines that with childish wonderment to explore, and attempt to understand, the world around us. It's weird and surely an exploration of that very childlike wonderment that still resides in Hiroyasu Ishida, but it's pretty damn good and a beautiful watch as well.

We spent too long asking, 'Where are the penguins going?' and 'Why are there penguins here?' but never thought to stop and ask, 'How are the penguins?'.

Penguin Highway is one of those animated films that leave you with mixed feelings. On the one hand, the animation is great, with a mix of 2D and 3D that works very well in the sets, with nothing out of place. But then you get such basic, personality-less character design that it feels like they lacked love in that area.

The story, which is an adaptation of a novel, is a bit choppy. You can tell they're trying to cram a lot of information into a short time, and that makes the pace uneven. Even so, it has its charm as a story of initiation into adulthood, and the main character manages to strike a chord at certain points.

The big flaw here is the Spanish dubbing, which is terrible. It literally takes you out of the film in several scenes. If you can, watch it in the original version, because the dubbing doesn't do it justice at all.