The latest animation offering from Dreamworks, "Madagascar" follows the fortunes of four zoo animal friends mistakenly marooned in the wild.
In the New York City Zoo, zebra Marty (Rock) has a luxurious but unsatisying life with his friends Gloria (Jade Smith) the sassy hippo and Melman (Schwimmer) the hypochondriac giraffe. None of them have ever been outside the zoo and, come his 10th birthday, Marty daydreams more and more about a place with wide open spaces where animals can run free. He thinks it's called 'the wild' but he's not sure where it is or how to get there, although he has heard rumours of a place called 'Connecticut', which might have something to do with it. His best friend Alex the Lion (Stiller) - star zoo attraction - does his best to understand, but for him, showboating to an adoring public every day, fed with steak, groomed and pampered, life is just perfect the way it is.
One night, inspired by the deranged group of militant penguins ("yew didn't see nothing, Geddit?!") who are determinedly digging their way to freedom, Marty manages an escape and, when his friends track him down and try to bring him back home, SWAT teams are called and tranquilizer darts reign down.
As a result, all the animals are dispatched in crates to be shipped to a game reserve but, during the journey, the psychotic penguins stage a merciless mutiny, turning the ship to head for Antarctica, and our four friends crash overboard and wash up on the beaches of 'the wilds' of Madagascar.
Alex blames Marty, sulks and tries to send signals for rescue, Marty kicks up his heels and runs free and the local population of party-hearty lemurs, led by King Julian XIII (Sasha Baron Cohen) noisily welcome the newcomers as a useful buffer against the indigenous predators.
Eventually, the zoo animals make up their arguments and settle on the island, but then they have to face the fresh problems that living in the wild brings. Not least of which is the shocking discovery of just what those steaks that Alex relies on to eat are actually made from.
|
It's all good clean fun, apart from some opportunist English-accented monkeys, who are slightly grubby (surrounded by the SWAT team, their advice is "if you've got any poo, fling it now!") but unlike Pixar movies, or 'Shrek' from the Dreamwatch stable, this really doesn't wotk on a second, higher level for the adults in the audience. The voices are perfectly matched to the animation, as we've come to expect, the surroundings are well-realised and a few neat gags go on in the background, but the characters aren't given any depth and the story doesn't exactly strain itself to be clever.
It's enjoyable enough, but the movie references thrown in for the audience are the few gags that don't really work. Think of it more on a par with a decent Disney aminations movie, basically for kids, but with enough of it that the adults who brought them t the cinema won't get bored.
Still, it's a long hot summer, especially if you've got kids hanging around the house, and this is a fun, easy-going summer movie, worth the price of your admission as well as theirs. I must admit that the four-year old I took along alternately sat and stood, as the drama demanded, steadily ingesting popcorn and never once taking her eyes from the screen. Not even to blink.
In the midst of the long hot summer holidays, I guess that's mission accomplished.
|
