So far, there have been 3 entries into the “Madagascar”
animated movie series. They focus around
an unlikely group of friends (a zebra, a lion, a hippo, and a giraffe) who are
hanging out in the New York Zoo, and accidentally go on worldwide adventures.
Those movies were certainly big hits, but as with the minions
in the Despicable Me series, the thing people responded to most strongly were a
group of side characters. In this case,
a group of military-minded penguins.
The Penguins did have their own animated series for a while,
and finally, they have their own movie.
The movie is directed by Eric Darnell and Simon J. Smith, who are the
same directors from all the previous Madagascar movies, so their level of
expertise is pretty high by now.
The story for this movie starts by briefly showing the
origin of the team as they rescue Private (while still in egg form) as he rolls
off a cliff in Antarctica. Skipper (the
leader), Kowalski (the brains?), and Rico (demolitions), had already decided to
break free of the other penguins “go with the flow” mentality and set out on
their own adventures. The story then
jumps to the end of the last Madagascar movie (just when you thought you had
gotten Chris Rock’s Polka Dot Afro song out of your head), as the penguins are
ready for their next adventure. Private
is longing to prove that he is a valuable member of the team, and feeling like
he is only valued for his cuteness. The
four have a run-in with an octopus masquerading as an evil scientist, with an
entire legion of octopi henchmen. His
name is Dave, and he’s angry that he’s been shuffled from zoo to zoo, always
being replaced by cuter penguins. He
launches an evil plan to capture all the penguins from all the zoos, and zap
them with a ray that will un-cute them.
Skipper and the gang set out to disrupt his plan, and while
in a chase sequence in Venice, they encounter the North Wind – an elite team of
crime fighting northern winter animals.
After some initial not-getting-along, the two teams work together to
solve the case, with Private finally proving his worth as a member of the
team.
Something I really enjoyed was that the filmmakers stayed
with the original voices for the four penguins, Tom McGrath (Skipper), Chris
Miller (Kowalski), Christopher Knights (Private), and Conrad Vernon
(Rico). When making animated movies, the
tendency is to go with big name actors, which is useless, because there are
several talented voice actors out there.
The rest of the cast does have some big names in it.
- John Malkovich plays the evil octopus, Dave. And – he’s really perfect as an evil octopus.
- Benedict Cumberbatch voices the husky, Classified, who is the leader of the North Wind. He tries to maintain his dignity in the face of the Penguin nonsense.
- Ken Jeong plays Short Fuse, who seems to be a baby fur seal. He’s very fluffy and cute.
- Annet Mahendru plays Eva, a snow owl, who does a lot of flirting with Kowalsky.
- Peter Stormare plays Corporal – a large polar bear. Here’s a bit of trivia for you, polar bears and penguins never, ever encounter each other in the wild. Polar Bears are exclusively northern hemisphere animals, and penguins are exclusively southern hemisphere animals.
That’s about it, cast-wise.
As animated movies go, I was really pleased. It's great for kids, as most of the humor is straightforward, but I have to say adults will enjoy it too! It was really funny, and I laughed almost
constantly. I have always found the
leads in the Madagascar movies a little annoying, and really spent most of the
time waiting for the penguins to show up.
It’s solidly funny from top to bottom, and the animation is great.
7 out of 10 – gained points for the penguins breaking into
Fort Knox for snacks. Lost points for
the un-cute-ing of the penguins giving them random effects, like antlers, or
tentacles. Gained points for the rolling
over the white stripes on the pavement…just hilarious. Also – gained big time bonus points for Dave’s
random celebrity name-checking while giving orders. “Helen! Hunt them down! Kevin!
Bake-on! We’ll need that cake!”
There’s a ton of those, subtle jokes for the older crowd.
Bonus Video 1: The
minion spin off movie for next summer – here’s hoping it’s as funny as this
was!
Bonus Video 2: Cast
Interviews
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