So Norm is a polar bear who lives in the arctic and doesn’t really know how to hunt. But that’s okay because he can speak to humans, for some reason. Why? It’s never explained, but Norm goes back to when he was a child and explains to the audience that everyone in his family can communicate with humans, including his grandpa. Just his luck, he and his friend Socrates, who is an intelligent bird (because he wears glasses ya see), realize that human tourists are coming to the arctic. Are you still with me? So in order to appease the humans, Norm willingly enlists the helps of his friends to perform for the hapless tourists. Which works too well because he and Socrates find out that the humans are turning the arctic in to a tourist destination. So Norm made the arctic a tourist destination and now hates that it’s becoming a tourist destination. Understand?
Now, now, you’re probably saying that “Norm of the North” has too much plot for a movie that goes nowhere. And you’d be right. When Norm can stop twerking and dancing, he hides out in the hut of Vera, one of the developers who is in the Arctic to scout locations and try to catch footage of the animals to attract potential home owners. Her daughter is kind of on board with the project but doesn’t quite get the plan to build property in the snowy wilderness, or something. After she ships her hut back home, Norm ends up in the city. Being able to convince everyone he’s a man in a polar bear suit, he and his group of lemmings pals try to confront the evil land developer and keep him from making the arctic in to a suburban wasteland. There are also shots of lemmings urinating in to an office aquarium, which I assume is intended for comedy.
Just when you think the movie isn’t done with its narrative, there’s also a revelation about Norm’s missing grandfather, and a sub-plot involving protagonist Vera’s daughter entering a new school. She’s also smart because she wears glasses, get it? “Norm of the North” covers all the bases for an animated movie, doing everything in its power to catch on pop culture wise. Character Norm even has his own sidekicks that are basically poor man’s Minions; let’s face it, they’re poor man’s whatever those things were in “The Lorax.” They’re literally lemmings, and they don’t do much except squeak and squeal and help Norm dance a lot. Forget the fact Norm can speak to humans, we have to see as many shots of Norm dancing to keep the kids in the audience from dozing off.
There’s also the wildly inconsistent and very bottom of the barrel animation, which often makes “Norm of the North” feel like one of those knock off animated films you’d find in a Wal-Mart. You could probably blame Rob Schneider for “Norm of the North” being so terrible, but Norm isn’t given enough of a personality to figure out if Schneider is why the movie stinks. The writers take personality traits from Shrek, Alex from “Madagascar,” Diego from “Ice Age,” and even Mumble from “Happy Feet.” The titular character is never given a unique persona or quirks of his own, so in the end he comes off like pastiche of popular characters that can potentially sell toys, rather than a goofy inadvertent hero of nature. I’d suggest “Norm of the North” for younger audiences, but I think after thirty minutes even they will eventually wander off in boredom to look for something else to do.