With the next Shrek movie not coming out for a few years, DreamWorks, turns to their next best animated franchise this weekend with Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa which continues the story of four animals from the New York Central Zoo placed in the wild and forced to deal with their new surroundings. After all, the first one made nearly two hundred million dollars so why not?
Madagascar 2 picks up where the first one left off, with the animals stranded on Madagascar with a tribe of lemurs. Now, with a plane and with the group of penguins to fly it, they have decided to head back to New York. Unfortunately a short time after having taken off, the plane quickly crashes back to earth, making all the way from Madagascar to the African mainland. After an initial fear of once again being in a new and strange land, the four animals start to enjoy themselves in Africa. Alex the lion (voiced by Ben Stiller) finds his parents while Marty the Zebra (voiced by Chris Rock) finds a whole tribe of zebra (who are also all voiced by Chris Rock) that he can run with. Melman the giraffe (voiced by David Schwimmer) finds giraffes that appreciate his fine knowledge of medicine and dub him their witch doctor and Gloria the hippo (voiced by Jada Pinkett Smith) finds an attractive male hippo.
The wonders of their new home, however, quickly start to wear off as the animals realize that things in Africa aren't as great as they originally seemed. Among the slew of problems that the animals encounter are Melman learning about new exotic diseases and Marty realizing that he isn't unique in the herd of zebras. In fact soon the only animal having fun in King Julien (voiced by Sacha Baron Cohen) the king of the lemurs who traveled with the other animals, and has convinced himself that he now rules all of Africa as well.
While they don't have nearly as much screen time, the mains stars of the movie are of course the penguins. DreamWorks clearly knows that they were the best part of the first movie, going so far as to put them in the company logo this time around. Again the penguins steal the show from the main characters in their mad quest to fix the plane with parts that were stolen from tour jeeps that they hijacked.
There is a point in the movie where king Julien exclaims, "We must do this quickly before we come to our senses." Which really sums up how the movie seems to have been made. Everything was done quickly before anyone has a chance to come to their senses. A 30 second joke was a great hit in the first movie so why do that same joke only this time upgrade it to a B-plot in the movie. This train of thought seems to work about half the time. There are scenes in the movie that are quite memorable and enjoyable. Yet there are others that might cause viewers to sneak a peek at their watch.
The movie is, after all, a kid's movie, so it works great for kids. The animation of the movie is beautiful and things make farting noises. It just doesn't quite fit in with Shrek and Wall*e as a kids movie that you don't need to take a kid to go.
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