"a simple movie that just wants to tell a real story filled with great principles and it does so by adding entertainment and comedy"

An Australian production inspired by real events, Oddball and the Penguins is a family comedy that is made for both children and parents, gifting the audience with an entertaining and moving story about family and friendship.

Set in a remote area in Australia, the film focuses on a family who has devoted its entire life to preserving and saving an endangered species of penguins, known as Little Penguins, from the wild foxes that are hunting them. This flock of penguins live on a deserted island and is supervised by Emily, a young single mother who gave up her life to keep her late mother's project alive.

Unfortunately, since the sea town of Warrnambool, where Emily and her family live, can't afford surveillance on the island, the foxes are decimating the flock. Throughout the film the numbers of surviving penguins keeps dropping and, if by the official counting they will be less than ten, this wild sanctuary will have to be repurposed.

To try and save the day, Emily's daughter Olivia, along with her grandfather, the eccentric Swampy, try to coach their untrained and unruly maremmas dog Oddball to guard the penguins and save the sanctuary.

Oddball and the Penguins follows the classic plot standards for these kind of family comedies that wants to entertain both adults and children. The comic aspect of the movie, always relating to Oddball being a tornado and destroying everything that comes in its path, is well balanced with more serious, as well as tender, scenes that portray the deep bond between this special family that stood together and helped each other through the best and worst.

Even though Oddball and the Penguins is not a high quality film made with the finest technique and extraordinary cinematography, the movie is still great to watch. Its main purpose is to create awareness about an environmental matter that maybe many people ignored by using humour and emotions to help the audience empathise with the story.

In fact, the movie was inspired by the real events about the Little Penguins species in Middle Island and the volunteering project that, since 2006, is using maremmas dogs to protect them.

In making this film the director was able to highlight the great effort that many people had to put in order to save this wild sanctuary. Not only that, but he was also able to teach both children and parents the valuable lesson that in life it is important to believe in something great and that, when the road ahead gets difficult and filled with obstacles, one can always count on their family to go through them and finally reach their goal.

All in all, Oddball and the Penguins is a simple movie that just wants to tell a real story filled with great principles and it does so by adding entertainment and comedy all enclosed in a huge, furry and extremely sweet maremmas dog.