So, let’s start with a sidebar that has little to do with the quality of a movie: Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa is a title that annoys me mightily.
First of all, movie titlers worldwide—I beg you to please stop using “2” as a replacement for “to.” Yes, here it is an attempt to indicate a sequel without using the boring title followed by a roman numeral, but it is stupid nonetheless (Disney did this better earlier this year with Step Up 2: The Streets where moving that colon one character left changes to a different meaning). Secondly, this is an annoying title because the movie contains no escape to Africa. That happened in the first movie when our ragtag crew of animals from the Central Park Zoo found their way to, surprisingly enough, Madagascar. This movie contains an attempt to escape from Africa which fails and results in reaching another part of… Africa.
There you have it: On the important issue of title, I give Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa just a score of 2 out of 10 (it could have been something like MadagasCAR: Penguins Steal Jeeps and Monkeys Fling Poo so I have to save room for something worse to come along).
Now on to the movie itself. If you’ve seen Madagascar, all of the familiar characters are back. Alex the lion (Ben Stiller), Marty the zebra (Chris Rock), Gloria the hippopotamus (Jada Pinkett Smith), and Melman the giraffe (David Schwimmer) once again form the core group of wayward zoo animals back in the wild. The movie picks up not too much later from where the last movie ended with everybody stranded in Madagascar and trying to get home.
The cargo ship is presumably still out of gas—so as the new movie begins, they are about to fly home in a wrecked airplane fixed up by the four intrepid penguins that provided the best laughs last time around. Also on board this journey into a paycheck from the sequel are lemur King Julian (Sacha Baron Cohen), his right-hand man Maurice (Cedric the Entertainer), the cutely annoying Mort (Andy Richter), and those two monkeys that everybody seemed to forget about by the end of the first movie (I half expected them to just disappear without mention like Richie Cunningham’s older brother on Happy Days, but they’re safely accounted for).
Things go about as well as can be expected when flying in a plane repaired by a quartet of penguins, and so they end up crashing in a savannah on the African mainland (did I mention the title problem? Oh, I did). Now, if life is full of crazy coincidences, movies are built around them so it is no surprise at all that they happen to crash in the very animal preserve where Alex (though he doesn’t remember) was born and captured by poachers.
It isn’t entirely fair to in any way judge either Madagascar movie on the merits of the plot. They aren’t plot-driven any more than an old Mickey Mouse short was plot-driven. These movies are essentially 90-minute gag reels. Sure, the story is there (and in the case of this sequel, five stories) but the gag rules all; that’s why it is OK—kind of—when a great white shark chases Mort many miles over land. Fortunately this time around, they’ve toned down the reliance on movie spoofs and pop songs (though they are still there as the entire animal society and antagonistic relationship between Alex’s dad and his Scar-like challenger are lifted straight from The Lion King).
If gags are enough for you, then go into the theater happy because they frequently work. Too often they are targeted narrowly to the different age groups in the audience. One suspects there may not be a lot of overlap in the audience for appreciated both a good kick to the groin and a nice bit of labor unionization humor. In fact, when the movie is most focused on gags (mostly scenes involving the very amusing penguins or King Julien) is when it works best.
Unfortunately it does distract itself with story, and as so often happens in sequels, it splits everybody up into multiple stories. Alex finds himself trying to prove to his father (Bernie Mac, in one of his final roles) that even though he loves to dance, instead of fight he is still prideworthy (get it? I slay me). Marty learns that finding others like you isn’t so great if you’re a herd animal. Gloria engages in stereotypes by immediately seeking out a man. Melman’s main problem is so stupid I am going to wipe it from my mind. And that little old lady that pummeled Alex in the first movie learns that absolute power corrupts absolutely (yes, she’s back too and has a much bigger part).
Only King Julien and the penguins are saddled with character development and so only they are allowed freewheeling access to the funny bone. There is absolutely nothing wrong with comedy narrative—in fact I’d generally prefer it—but it’s inept and half-hearted at best.
The good outweighs the bad, though. So now that you can finally spend time with the family again rather than spending every waking moment refreshing Fivethirtyeight.com or RealClearPolitics or watching the campaign coverage of your choice, Madagascar 2 (I just can’t type the right title again) is an overall amusing tonic with which to scrub your brain (though I did have a political rant written into this review a half dozen times before deciding there was no way I could keep it short and focused) and notice how much your children have grown in the last year.
As a final postscript, I screened this movie in IMAX. It is the nature of computer generated graphics that the movie can easily (somewhat) be altered to account for differing aspect ratios. However, this is not a movie that goes out of its way to wow you with graphics, so I saw nothing that would suggest it is worth the extra $5 or so to see it on the giant screen.
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa is a Dreamworks Animation release.
- Wide release on Friday, November 8, 2008
- Directed by Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath
- Written by Eric Darnell, Tom McGrath, and Etan Cohen
- Starring Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, Jada Pinkett Smith, David Schwimmer, Sacha Baron Cohen, Bernie Mac
- Rated for some mild crude humor.
- Running time: 89 minutes
- Alex’s rating: 7 out of 10
