CORPORATE LINE: Ben Stiller (“Meet the Parents”), Chris Rock (“Chris Rock Never Scared”), David Schwimmer (TV’s “Friends”) and Jada Pinkett Smith (“Collateral”) star as the voices of four zoo animals who hang up when they hear the call of the wild.
Alex the Lion (Stiller) is the king of the urban jungle, the main attraction at New York’s Central Park Zoo. He and his best friends Marty the Zebra (Rock), Melman the Giraffe (Schwimmer) and Gloria the Hippo (Pinkett Smith) have lived their entire lives in blissful captivity, with regular meals provided and an admiring public to adore them.
Not content to leave well enough alone, Marty allows his curiosity to get the better of him and, with the help of some prodigious penguins, makes his escape to explore the world he’s been missing. Alex, Melman and Gloria go after him, but before they can go wild in the streets, they are captured, crated and put on a ship to Africa…to be ultimately set free.
When those plotting penguins sabotage the ship, Alex, Marty, Melman and Gloria find themselves washed ashore on the exotic island of Madagascar. Now, these native New Yorkers have to figure out how to survive in the wild and discover the true meaning of the phrase “It’s a jungle out there.”
THE MOVIE: Four zoo animals looking for the wild end up on the adventure of a lifetime. It sounds like a winning formula and yet it’s only so on occasion. The script is the biggest issue. Some of the jokes fall flat and are never as visually funny or as interesting as Shrek. There is a point in the movie where you wonder if it might not have been funnier if they stayed in the zoo and had their adventure there.
Graphically Madagascar takes the entire genre a step further. This is visually stunning. You have to wonder how much further studios can push these movies towards reality.
The script does provide some laughs on rare occasions. The only shining light is Sacha Baron Cohen (a.k.a. Ali G) who voices the King of the Lemurs. Cohen is so funny you wish his character had been introduced much earlier. The almost always funny Chris Rock never gets going and sounds like a less funny version of Eddie Murphy’s Donkey from Shrek.
FRANKLY: Kids will enjoy Madagascar even though they won’t laugh throughout. It’s not nearly as loveable as Toy Story and never as funny as Shrek. In the end Madagascar is very serviceable as a movie you might catch when you have absolutely nothing else to do.
+ Charlie Craine
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