Witless 'Penguins' for the birds

The alleged family comedy “Mr. Popper's Penguins” lacks wit, cleverness, convincing characters, a serviceable plot, worthy messages about parenting and real fun.

It's the kind of bleak, soul-deprived comedy that even Dean Jones would refuse to do, and we're talking about the survivor of some of Walt Disney's shallowest and most mechanical family movies.

“Mr. Popper's Penguins” wallows in abject dumbness. It showers us with stupidity.

Take a scene near the end when Tom Popper, played by erstwhile funnyman Jim Carrey, rushes into a restaurant to stop it from being sold. He bursts into the room, inexplicably pretending to move in slow motion.

“St-oooooop ... th-uuuuh ... saaaayle!” he shouts, slowly.

Then, Popper apologizes to everyone for his slow motion act, explaining, “I needed to get your attention!”

It would have been unfunny enough if Carrey had performed this stale and moldy slo-mo bit and gone on with the scene. But to apologize and explain why he did it?

This movie lacks the courage of its nonexistent convictions.

“Mr. Popper's Penguins” concerns another archetypal Hollywood businessman who has made a fortune, but at the cost of his family.

Divorced from Amanda (Carla Gugino), New York real estate salesman Popper is a phantom parent to tweenie Janie (Madeline Carroll), a volcano of erupting self-consciousness and insecurity, and little Billy (Maxwell Perry Cotton), a needy lad who wishes Dad would be a dad.

It's apparent that Popper is doing what his own globe-trotting dad did to him, abandon the family unit while going on adventures around the world.

Having established this flimsy insight into Popper's personality, the movie — directed without conviction or crisp comic timing by Mark Waters — launches into a failed attempt at magical realism: Popper receives six Emperor penguins in the mail, a last gesture from Popper's papa before he dies.

Billy and Janie love the birds. Amanda does, too.

Soon, Popper has opened his penthouse home to the wintry elements, and turned his living room into an icy haven for his new pets.

He names each of the penguins with the same level of imagination evident in the rest of this movie. He calls the biting penguin “Bitey.” The doofus penguin he names “Nimrod.”

It's amazing that Popper didn't name all of them Poopy, since there's an extended scene of penguins dumping excrement intended to elicit laughs from viewers.

Meanwhile, in what passes for the primary plot, Popper tries to make partner in his real estate firm.

Mr. Franklin (Philip Baker Hall) tells Popper he must negotiate the sale of the last piece of Central Park real estate their company needs: the historic Tavern on the Green restaurant, the very place where young Popper used to sit at a table, waiting for his daddy.

Tough Tavern owner Mrs. Van Gundy (slumming Broadway and film legend Angela Lansbury) refuses to sell, at least to Popper's firm. She wants to find the “right” buyer who'll maintain the restaurant and not be swayed by crass stuff like money.

The movie has a wannabe villain in Nat Jones (Clark Gregg), a New York animal officer. Jones keeps popping up, threatening to take away Popper's penguins, but does nothing until the script demands a chase sequence through a zoo.

“Mr. Popper's Penguins,” based on a 1938 novel, projects a palpable desperation to be funny, and most of that emanates from Carrey, once the zany guy who turned cuteness into a comic weapon.

Carrey has reached the point in his career where recycled bits from a certain pet detective fly about as well as Mr. Popper's birds.

<b>“Mr. Popper's Penguins”</b>

★ ½

<b>Starring:</b> Jim Carrey, Carla Gugino, Clark Gregg, Ophelia Lovibond, Angela Lansbury

<b>Directed by: </b>Mark Waters

<b>Other: </b>A 20th Century Fox release. Rated PG. 95 minutes.