Madagascar

There are so few movies that you can enjoy as a family, so perhaps I've given this more stars than it deserves. I did laugh out loud several times. The jokes are mostly "pop culture" references; for example, (the zebra (Chris Rock) has a treadmill in his area (not a cage, really) at the zoo.

This is sort of a twist on the fish out of water movies, as the zoo animals, according to the local animal rights activists, don't belong in the zoo; they are shipped off to Africa. Hilarity ensues; the animals don't end up at the planned destination and find out that they don't necessarily belong in the wild either. What I found unique about this movie is that for once, the actual nature of the animal is acknowledged. Ben Stiller's lion character realizes that everyone looks like a steak and wants to eat everyone. Of course, he realizes that he's "wrong" (HUH??) and tries to change. The kids loved it, I wasn't totally bored out of my mind, and the animation was pretty good, I thought. The penguins were especially cute. Wish they'd had more screen time.

Madagascar is a movie produced by Dreamworks under the direction of Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath, who undoubtedly achieved the perfect fusion between 3D animation and comedy, deriving as a final product a film for all audiences full of funny moments, moving music and really good animation for 2005, when watching the film you could tell just by seeing the characters their feelings and expressions that the animation team led by Shannon Jeffries as art director wanted to portray them to us.

The story of the film begins in the New York zoo, where there's a very diverse group of friends, consisting of a lion who is the protagonist (Alex), his best friend, a zebra (Marty), a hippopotamus (Gloria) and a giraffe (Melman). It all begins when Marty, on his 10th birthday, regrets how routine his life has become, which is increased by his desire to know what there is outside the walls that keep him captive, this dream of changing his life, combined with the ideas of a group of penguins which act as a squad of soldiers, leads this group of friends on many adventures.

The film is very entertaining, since its mixture of fiction and reality along, with some moments of dark humor, keep the audience focused on what will happen next during the film's 82 minutes, additionally, it instills important values like friendship and the anthropomorphic behavior of the characters will make us feel even more involved in the story that is presented to us.

I took my 8 yr old daughter and a friend of hers to see the movie last weekend. We had a blast. The humor is one of Dreamworks best. It was sutle enough on some of the jokes that the younger kids did not catch on but you could hear the adults chuckling.

My personal favorite was Melmen. He was very funny and I think that everyone can relate to knowing someone like that. (Sick all the time)

I would not recommend kids under the age of 6 to see it though. Their where quite a few little ones in the theater and all you heard was "what are they doing now? Why are people laughing?" etc.

A lot of fun and a lot of laughs. We will definitely own this when it comes out on DVD.

Lots of fun - I saw it with the grandkids and a theater full of families. a great time was had by all. technically speaking, one might say that the story was 'uneven' in places (can you say *that* about animated films? (-:) -- I mention this because there has been some needlessly negative feedback here at IMDb. On the whole, though, the presentation is quick-paced, bright, happy, and delightful to the eyes and ears. There are also some unique, quirky scenes (i.e. animals nonchalantly getting on a subway?) - I love to see stuff I haven't seen before. that's not easy to do, you know - by all accounts, "everything has been done on film already.." - (if you catch my drift). so, give credit when due! enjoy!(-:

A great story of friendship and survival where an animal escapes from the zoo and his friends go to pick it up but everything goes wrong. The plot and their misadventures are quite original and the whole thing is rendered very well and generates great fun