Film Reviews

Madagascar

• Rating:
• Director: Eric Darnell / Tom McGrath.
• Starring: Chris Rock, Ben Stiller, David Schwimmer, Jada Pinkett.
• Details: US / 86 mins (U).

Marty the Zebra (voiced by Rock) lives in New York's Central Park zoo, but pines for the wilds of his ancestral home - Africa. Inspired by a platoon of tunnelling penguins, Marty breaks out of the zoo and heads for - well, upstate New York. A hop, skip and logic-defying jump later, and Marty and his friends Alex the lion (Stiller), Melman the giraffe (Schwimmer) and Gloria the hippo wash up on the shores of Madagascar. It's a paradise for Marty, but Alex - the pampered star attraction at the zoo - hates life in the wild. And that's before Alex reverts back to his more animal state, and realises he should be hunting Marty down. A Dreamworks animation tale, this has everything you've come to expect from the makers of Shrek and Shark Tale - pop-culture in-jokes, cinematic references (from The Mission to American Beauty), nudge-nudge adult asides, and day-glo colours rendered in superbly realised animation. And, if you can get past the cutesy anthropomorphism, there's a slightly darker edge to Madagascar than is strictly necessary, including snakes and crocs chowing down on friendly little furry animals and a Lord of the Flies-style 'innate savage' sub-plot. Unfortunately, The Incredibles set a pretty high standard for this kind of thing, and while Madagascar is an enjoyable slice of hokum that is beautiful to look at, it fails to clear the bar.

Review by Declan Burke