Madagascar 2005 Animation Starring Ben Stiller
Four Zoo Animals Find Themselves Stranded in the Wild
Sep 15, 2009
Alex is a privileged lion living happily in the New York City Zoo, his friends Marty, Gloria and Melman are shipped to the wild, but end up in Madagascar. Animation with a talented voice cast from DreamWorks, the studio behind Shrek and Shark Tale.
Madagascar's Plot and Characters
Alex the lion (Ben Stiller), Marty the zebra (Chris Rock), Gloria the hippopotamus (Jade Pinkett Smith) and Melman the giraffe (David Schwimmer) all live in the Central Park Zoo in New York. Alex, Gloria and hypochondriac Melman are happy with their lives but Marty longs to run free in the wild. After discovering that the penguins, consisting of Skipper (McGrath), Rico (John DiMaggio), Kowalski (Chris Miller), and Private (Christopher Knights) in the zoo are planning on breaking out, Marty decides to head off to the wild too.
Worrying that Marty will get into trouble the other animals go after him to bring him back to the zoo. Unfortunately their escape from the zoo prompts the humans to conclude that they are unhappy in the zoo and need to be taken back to their natural environment.
The penguins (having failed to escape the zoo) hijack the ship taking them back to Africa and the crates containing Alex, Marty, Gloria and Melman are lost overboard. They all wash up on the strange island of Madagascar where they meet the local lemurs led by King Julien XIII (Sacha Baron Cohen).
Marty, Gloria and Melman are able to cope with their new situation because they can eat the local vegetation; however, Alex (who has lived on steak his entire life) begins to starve and his hunting instincts quickly begin to surface.
Madagascar is no Shrek
In a world where computer animations have been coming on in leaps and bounds, any new animation will have to be something a bit special to get the attention of an audience that can be very selective. Sadly DreamWorks’ Madagascar can boast an A-List voice cast, but unfortunately like Shark Tale it is basically another example of the voice actors being more important than the story.
As usual with a children’s film the main theme is about friendship winning out over everything else and someone can do anything as long as someone else believes in them. However, the idea of a character going through withdrawal would not be understood by a child and therefore they might not understand what is happening to Alex.
It is possible that DreamWorks intended to make a film with colourful characters and lively animation but with underlying themes that would appeal to adults. There are several references to other films that children would probably not be familiar with (like Planet of the Apes) which suggests that DreamWorks were trying to make a film with greater appeal.
The main cast are all fine as their respective characters and are famous enough for their voices to be recognisable. However, it is Sacha Baron Cohen as King Julien that steals every scene he is in, apparently the wonderful accent that Julien uses was done by Cohen himself during his audition and the character was not originally intended to have an accent.
The penguins are also hilarious, but they are largely reduced to supporting characters when they would have been far more suited to a centre role. The Madagascar 2-Disc Edition DVD features a short which stars the penguins and is well worth paying an extra few pounds for.
Madagascar (like Shark Tale) seemed to rely too heavily on its voice cast and during advertising was heavily linked to the previous DreamWorks’ success Shrek. Children will enjoy seeing lemurs dancing to the song “I like to move it” sang by Cohen but on the whole Madagascar falls short of the standard set by the Pixar Films.
5/10
Madagascar is an average animation that is nothing special
