Just when you thought every last drop of cute had been squeezed out of the world’s penguin population, along comes this heartwarming Australian underdog tale, and once again our cinemas are overrun by adorable little black and white beaky chaps.
The latest penguin assault on the film world comes with a secret weapon: a lovable doofus of a hound called Oddball. A Maremma sheepdog (think of a flokati rug on legs), Oddball is one doggy ASBO away from the pound. But with the population of fairy penguins (that’s a real thing, apparently) decimated by opportunistic foxes, Oddball finally gets to prove his worth by camping out on the penguin’s island and guarding the handful of surviving birds.
The human characters in this emphatically upbeat tale – which is loosely based on a true story – are fairly two dimensional, but then they are purely supporting players in this canine-avian double bill. Given the other movie options for the family audience this half-term, you could do a lot worse than this gentle shaggy dog story.
