Handlung

A group of animals who have spent all their life in a New York zoo end up in the jungles of Madagascar, and must adjust to living in the wild.

Longing to roam free in the vast landscapes of Mother Africa, Marty, the bored and dejected zebra of the famous Central Park Zoo, escapes his prison on the night of his tenth birthday celebration. However, after a botched rescue attempt by Marty's companions--Alex, the content lion; Melman, the skittish giraffe, and Gloria, the resolute hippo--the friends will find themselves crated up and shipped off to a remote wildlife preserve, only to end up on the sandy shores of exotic Madagascar. At last, Marty's dream will come true; nevertheless, what does it really mean to be a truly wild animal?—Nick Riganas

A group of animals sneak out of their home zoo to travel and explore more of the world. Eventually, they all end up on an island where they meet new animal friends. It turns out that they have been living in fear because of a threat endangers them.—RECB3

At New York's Central Park Zoo, a lion, a zebra, a giraffe, and a hippo are best friends and stars of the show. But when one of the animals goes missing from their cage, the other three break free to look for him, only to find themselves reunited ... on a ship en route to Africa. When their vessel is hijacked, however, the friends, who have all been raised in captivity, learn first-hand what life can be like in the wild.—Anonymous

Zebra Martin / Marty (Chris Rock) has grown weary of his daily routine and desires to experience the wild, Lion Alex (Ben Stiller), a sassy common hippopotamus Gloria (Jada Pinkett Smith) and a hypochondriac, earnest, and awkward reticulated giraffe named Melman (David Schwimmer) are inmates of the NY Central Park Zoo. Alex lives as a star attraction known as the "King of New York" & that makes Martin jealous. The Penguins have been digging a tunnel to escape the zoo & go to their homeland in Antarctica. One of the penguins talks to Martin & tells him of their plan to escape.

Skipper (Tom McGrath) is a Chinstrap penguin who leads a commando unit consisting of himself and three other penguins. The unit includes Kowalski (Chris Miller) intelligence officer of the team, Rico (Jeffrey Katzenberg) who is the loose-cannon explosives expert and weapons supplier of Skipper's team who communicates through grunts and squeals, and Private (Christopher Knights) an English-accented, mild-mannered eager rookie of Skipper's team

That night at his birthday party, Marty expresses his wish to escape to the wild by boarding a train from the Grand Central train station. Everyone laughs. Marty learns that the zoo's penguins-Skipper, Kowalski, Rico, and Private-are trying to escape to Antarctica, and promptly follows them out. Marty heads towards Grand Central Terminal, as he plans to catch a train to nearby Connecticut.

That same night Melman finds Marty missing & they assume he has left. Alex, Gloria and Melman take a quick subway ride. All of the humans run in fear. Alex, Melman, and Gloria pursue Marty in an attempt to convince him to return. Eventually the three meet up with Marty at the train station. An old woman notices Alex and starts to beat him up with her pocketbook. The penguins are at the station as well & are caught.

The police surround the animals & shoot them with tranquilizer darts. Under pressure from anti-captivity activists, the zoo is forced to ship the escaped animals by sea to a nature reserve in Kenya.

The animals wake up in a crate on an ocean freighter in the middle of the ocean. The penguins escape their crate & take control of the ship. They decide they want to go to Antarctica. Suddenly, the penguins whip the ship completely around, causing the four boxes containing Alex, Gloria, Melman and Marty to fall off board and into the sea.

Alex, Gloria, Melman and Marty wash up on the beaches of Madagascar, Africa. Melman says that they must be in San Diego so there must be humans close by. They come across a group of lemurs singing the song "Move it". The group is about to walk into the gathering and find out what's going on when the lemurs are attacked by "the Foosa" which are the predatory fossa who look like hyenas. The Fossa are about to eat a little lemur named Mort (Andy Richter) when Alex steps in & scares off the Fossa.

The King lemur named Julian, (Sacha Baron Cohen) and his partner Maurice (Cedric the Entertainer) introduce themselves. This is when the group finds that they have reached the wild. Alex and Marty fight. Alex blames Marty for all of this. Alex makes several attempts to get them back to the zoo.

Marty decides to separate from the group & go alone on his own. Marty constructs his own drink bar. Marty finds life in Madagascar to be exactly what he was looking for and Gloria and Melman soon join him.

Alex gets upset and tries to sleep but can't because he hears Marty at the drink bar. Alex finally comes to realize how selfish and entitled he has been. Alex gets up and goes over to Marty to apologize. Marty accepts and invites Alex in the bar. The next morning, the four animals meet up with the lemurs & start having fun in the wild.

Alex becomes hungry for his favorite food; steak. Alex then looks at Marty and the rest of the lemurs and pictures them as steak. Alex's mouth waters and he bites Marty in the butt.

The next morning, the lemurs' leader, ring-tailed lemur King Julien XIII, leads his subjects into befriending the castaways in hopes that Alex's presence will keep the Fossa at bay, despite protest about Alex's predatory nature from his adviser, Maurice, an aye-aye. After briefly losing his sanity and attacking Marty and his friends, Alex realizes what he has done and, fearing he may be a danger to his friends, flees to the Fossa territory of the island. Seeing what Alex has become and how dangerous the wild can be, Marty regrets his decision to leave the zoo.

The penguins reach Antarctica. They stand next to the ship with snow blowing in their faces. They yell out "Well this sucks!". Back to Alex, who has made his way to the predator side of the island. Marty makes a fence to keep others away from him since he feels he is dangerous.

Back on the beach the others are upset by what happened with Alex when they see the ship and flag it down. It runs right up on the beach and the penguins get off. The animals realize they can go home now. Marty sneaks off to get Alex even though the others told him not to go near him. Marty follows Alex's trail through the jungle Alex made earlier and attempts to convince Alex to return, but Alex refuses out of fear as he still feels ashamed for biting Marty. Marty reminds Alex of their friendship and their home in New York.

While Marty is trying to persuade Alex to come with him, the Fossa surround Alex and chase him, he runs into Gloria and Melman on the way and the Fossa surround them. The penguins show up and start kicking butt, although they are totally outnumbered by the Fossa and know they'll lose. Then Alex comes into the picture looking totally insane and hungry saying that its "his kill" he pounces on Marty and tells him to play along. Alex chases all the Fossa away and tells them this is "HIS TURF" and not to come back.

At the beach, the lemurs are having a going away party for the animals, and the penguins make Alex some sushi, which Alex likes, and they realize will keep him from wanting to eat the others.

On the deck of the boat the others decide to make some stops along the way back and have some fun. The penguins are sunbathing on the beach. One asks the lead penguin "should we tell them the boat is out of gas?" The lead penguin replies, "Just smile and wave boys, smile and wave."