Madagascar 2

It's hard to say if is an improvement or not on the original, but it's certainly a good continuation of the story this time more focused on Alex's origin and life. The animation looks great, the humor is on point of course, and the characters with so much more development. With some great moments is a fun sequel to all ages!

This movie really will give you a good laugh. It is about a new adventure of the four friends: Alex the lion, Melman the giraffe, Marty the zebra, Gloria the hippo. On the trip back to New York, they had an air crash and came to Africa instead. There, they found their roots and also came across some difficulties. In this movie, there are many supporting roles. And among them, the four little penguins played an important part and even covered the other main roles for their genius and humor. From the very beginning, the four penguins spoofed the DreamWorks icon. As for their popularity, the DreamWorks even planned to make a film about the Madagascar Penguins. I'm really looking forward to it. In this movie, the film makers pictured us an amazing Africa with wild animals and beautiful landscapes. The visual effects are pretty good and impressing. And I like the theme song "Move It", really making me full of energy and feel the desire of dancing with the characters. The last scene when Marty said that "Love has no boundary", I can't agree more. And I think that this does not only apply to love between lovers but also apply to love between friends and family. All in all, this is quite a funny movie and worth watching.

The first Madagascar was a colourful and above average animated movie. I saw its sequel last night for the first time, not sure not to expect, and I was surprised. It actually lives up to the first pretty much (and almost surpasses it), it isn't as zany in terms of humour to its original despite some very clever references, but it has more heart than the first film did. Of course the plot is very predictable and I did notice one or two similarities with the Lion King, and probably slower than pace. But it is well the watch, for a number of reasons. The animation was beautiful and very colourful, even more so than the original. The characters are still great, the penguins were great fun, but Julien was absolutely hilarious here. The voice actors bring a lot of vigour into the film, Jada Pinkett Smith has more to do here, Ben Stiller and Chris Rock provide great comedy and heart and Sacha Baron Cohen is a hoot as Julien. Plus there is a sweet romantic interlude between Melman and Gloria. All in all, a fun sequel that lives up to the first. 7/10 Bethany Cox

I am a fan of the first Madagascar film, I know there are a lot of people who dissed it, but I thought it was cute. So when I saw the trailer for Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, I was excited. I saw it on Friday and I absolutely enjoyed this fun family film. I think this even had a more coherent plot as well, plus how could you not love the penguins? They are absolutely hilarious and need their own movie, maybe a Full Metal Jacket with penguins! Anyways, I loved the characters so much, they're back and better than ever. They even ended up giving the little old lady from the first Madagascar who fought Alex the Lion, she has a bigger role and was so awesome to watch and listen too. I think the jokes were even funnier than the first Madagascar, my favorite scene without a doubt was the plane sequence in the beginning. But the whole story was just a blast to watch.

Alex, Marty, Gloria, and Melman are still looking to go back to Africa, everything seems to be a good and they start to fly back with the penguins as well as Julien. But the plane runs out of fuel and crashes, they are still in Africa, but bump into an animal pack where Alex finds his long lost parents, Marty finds out that all zebras are like him(imagine being surrounded by 1,000 Chris Rocks*shudder*), Gloria has a hunky hippo who is crushing on her, and Melman becomes the giraffe witch doctor of his group. Alex is about to be initiated into his pride, but one lion does not want him part of the group and will do anything to become leader.

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa is definitely worth your watch, it's not the animated film of the year, but it was a lot of fun to watch. It kind of reminded me of The Lion King a little bit, it has a similar story. It's a great family film and is fun for both the kids and the adults as well. Although I still think it's funny that Alex is voiced by Ben Stiller and his dad is voiced by Bernie Mac, but it's all good, who knows, maybe Alex's dad just had a little more soul in him. I would recommend this film, it was a lot of fun to watch and I suggest we write in a script for those penguins! They're a blast to watch on screen.

7/10

The original Madagascar was a break from the typical mold in family animated entertainment; it was fearless, didn't slow down to teach a lesson, and was not afraid of entertaining solely on physical humor. The content was light, but it was so satisfying that it wound up being Dreamwork's second best animated movie of them all—behind Shrek. The zany cast of characters easily exceeds the number of memorable characters in Shrek, and contained more humor and creativity than all of the other Dreamworks animated flicks before and ever since.

In the second installment, you see the writers trying to give the franchise a dosage of heart and sentimentality, which is what made Shrek the instant classic it became. A bit of heart can definitely propel an animated movie into masterpiece status (see Toy Story and Finding Nemo) however this is not the franchise to do it. Madagascar is about the cast and how they interact with each other and the conflict that is presented onto them. While the laughs are definitely here, the attempt for emotion constantly makes this film slows down and keeps it from being a superior installment when placed against the original. That being said, it's still a fun, entertaining, and unpredictable movie that continues the zaniness that made the original a personal guilty pleasure of mine.

In Escape 2 Africa, we follow the New York zoo animals, the psychotic penguins, the monkeys, and the lemur leaders as they unexpectedly are stranded in the middle of Africa. While at first the main four (Marty, Alex, Melman, Gloria) are rather happy at their new environment, they quickly realize that it's not all that it seems, and that their new temporary home is splitting the four apart. In the meantime, the penguins attempt to repair the plane that they accidentally destroyed. The writers did a good job in presenting all sorts of new gags and yet again refrain from referencing pop culture too much (although the Twilight Zone nod was hilarious). But, they couldn't deliver the emotional impact because of one main reason: this franchise wasn't meant to ever slow down in terms of pacing. Like a roller coaster, this movie moves sometimes extremely fast, and then can grind into a halt in the next scene. Lastly the main four don't interact much with each other, but more with the environment. There literally are at least 8 plots happening at once—some of them are good, some of them aren't.

The voice acting remains decent, but there are fewer lines by the original cast, and more from supporting characters and new characters. Bernie Mac, rest in peace, but his performance was rather bland and could have been done by anyone else. Alec Baldwin didn't have much of a chance to lend his comedic skills either. Yet again, the penguins and Sacha Baron Cohen steal every scene they are in, no matter how mediocre the previous scene was. Cohen (as Julien) has an obvious knack for comedy, and delivers every line perfectly for two movies in a row; not bad at all. Ben Stiller had fewer chances at being funny, as they had to handle all the major slower moments. Chris Rock's role was surprisingly limited, especially for someone who did so well in the original.

The one major improvement from the original was the animation, which was crisp, fluid, and flowed better. Surely it's undeniably no Wall-E (Or even 2007's Ratatouille), but it's still respectably an improvement over previous work. The jokes themselves are hit-and-miss like the original; the only difference is this one has more misses. Plus it's the recurring jokes that are missing; the hula girl, feisty tourist, repetitive herd, and lion-dancing bits all didn't elicit much laughter from the audience, nor from me. We just needed much more Julien, and much more penguin-action. Maybe in the future the focus will shift; in the meantime they are just grabbing all the spotlight and attention.

Bottom Line: Exactly what Scrat did to Ice Age: The Meltdown years ago, we have minor/supporting characters becoming the main hit and running the show. While the original four characters take a backseat and add emotion to a franchise that's too fast-paced for this sort of stuff, we have the penguins and Julien taking over the movie and keeping it from being another totally disappointing animated sequel like every straight-to-video Disney sequel, the ugly Shrek sequels, or Ice Age 2. The entertainment level is still magnificent the second time around, but it won't age as well as the first Madagascar did. Leave the heart to Pixar, because those folks have nailed it perfectly for years. Dreamworks can serve as the escapist cinema in terms of animation, but if they continue imitating and try to outdo Pixar, it will just dampen the quality of all their movies. Madagascar 2 is the prime example of this: purely fun and entertaining until it tries to distribute family values. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa is also proof that those hilarious penguins need their own movie, pretty much immediately.

Yes, right now.