Happy Feet Two

Little kids, of course, will swallow it whole without thinking twice, but they know better than to ask things like What is that Atlantic puffin doing in the Southern Hemisphere? or Did Brad Pitt and Matt Damon get teeny-weeny paychecks for playing crustaceans? Little kids are naturally on drugs: We just call it “imagination’’ or “willing suspension of disbelief’’ or “too many Gummi Worms.’’ No, it’s we adults who have to watch “Happy Feet Two’’ with one eye closed so we won’t flash back to that junior year party at the hippie frat.

Even with one eye closed, you can tell that George Miller, the slightly crazed Australian filmmaker who has given us “Mad Max,’’ “Babe: Pig in the City,’’ and the first “Happy Feet,’’ is scrambling to keep audiences awake. The original told a linear, if deeply strange, story about a fluffy little penguin named Mumble (voiced by Elijah Wood) who tap-danced rather than sang Top 40 R&B tunes, as penguins apparently do everywhere except in reality.

“Happy Feet Two,’’ by contrast, juggles four separate plots and eight different species while treating the melting of the polar ice caps as a dramatic device rather than an environmental catastrophe. The main order of business is the massive iceberg that has crashed into the coastline, trapping hordes of emperor penguins without food or means of escape. Outside the danger zone and desperate to help are the now-grown Mumble (Wood again), his adowwable son Erik (voiced by Ava Acres), and their manic, Hispanic Adelie penguin pal Ramon, whom Robin Williams again turns into the life of the party.