If you fell in love with the wingless heroes of last year's documentary hit "March of the Penguins," prepare to surrender completely to George Miller's computer-animated musical/adventure "Happy Feet."

In the year of the animated movie, this one soars above them all.

Miller co-wrote the "Babe" movies, and his hero in "Happy Feet" - a tap-dancing emperor penguin named Mumbles (voiced by Elijah Wood) - is every bit as warm-hearted and courageous as the pig who thought he was a dog.

Dropped as an egg during a gyration by his Elvis-impersonating father, Memphis (Hugh Jackman), Mumbles is hatched without the ability to sing, a devastating handicap in a culture where couples mate through song. But he comes into the penguin world with something unique - he can dance like Savion Glover (who did Mumbles' footwork, captured in computers and animated).

Mumbles can't always control his feet; they are his form of expression, and though only his loving mom, Norma Jean (Nicole Kidman), and his hoped-for mate, Gloria (Brittany Murphy), encourage him, he is one expressive penguin.

Over the course of the movie, which will follow him on a mission to find out why the emperor penguins' fish supply is disappearing, his dancing ability will become a colony-saving asset.

The camera views dart through, zoom in and flow around the animated environment with breathtaking photo-reality.

The action sequences - in which Mumbles encounters killer sharks, a vicious sea lion, elephant seals and an icebreaker ship, and takes several trips down the slopes of glaciers - make Pixar's "Cars" look like it's standing still. And the music will keep the audience's feet tapping, too.

Robin Williams, in his best voice work since "Aladdin," plays two characters from other penguin species: the happy-go-lucky Ramon, a small Adelie penguin with a thick Spanish accent, and Lovelace, a plump Rockhopper penguin who thinks the talisman around his neck gives him the power of divination.

In fact, the talisman is a familiar plastic holder for six-packs (you know you're supposed to cut them up before throwing them away) found drifting among other human debris in the wakes of giant trawlers.

Rockhopper, Ramon and Ramon's barrio buddies join Mumbles for part of his adventure, and you couldn't ask for more amusing company.

Finally, a word about the singing, which includes Williams' Spanish version of Sinatra's "My Way," Murphy singing Queen's "Somebody to Love," and Jackman and Kidman courting each other with a rewritten rendition of Prince's "Kiss." That word is: wonderful.