W.C. Fields famously quipped “Never work with children or animals,†but then he didn’t know Jim Carrey, an actor equipped with enough deranged energy to dance with penguins, eat with penguins, yell at penguins, and still stay the center of attention. In the teaser trailer for new adaptation of Mr. Popper’s Penguins, in which Carrey plays a New Yorker with penguins in his penthouse, one can see that Carrey’s character will hew to the standard arc for a Carrey character: A normal guy in abnormal circumstances gets wound up and starts skirting sanity, giving Carrey an excuse to make crazy faces, and in this particular circumstance, fill his entire house with ice just to make it a home for his penguin friends. The penguins do look better in their natural penguin suits than Carrey does in his tuxedo, but even they cannot make Carrey look all that cute teaching them an “Ice Ice Baby†soft-shoe routine that ends with Carrey saying “Word.â€
[Fandango]