Remember, cute and cuddly, boys. Cute and cuddly.

Rating: 1/10 (19 June 2005)

I would have to disagree with most critics about this film. This was not a boring film at all  it was pointless. I literally walked out of this viewing trying to think about what this film was all about. It wasn't that it was confusing in any way (honestly, overly simple), it was just that NOTHING HAPPENED. Normally, in cinema, you have an introduction, something happens, it tries to get resolved, then you have that climactic ending that everyone talks about for weeks. None of this happened in Madagascar. For an hour and twenty minutes I sat, nearly falling asleep, as decently animated creatures used horrid voices and clichéd references to move the plot of the story. Throw in an overused song and some semi-racist moments, and you have the film called Madagascar. Pointless indeed.
In contrast to what everyone else seems to think about the animation of this film, I was impressed. It was a different style than what was used in Dreamworks other works like Shark Tales and Shrek. Instead, the animation on this film seemed more comic, as if I was reading the story that was taking place directly from my morning newspaper. It seemed flat, and to me, it worked. I really liked the way that Alex the lion looked, and the way that the animators drew him. In a world so infused with CGI and computer animation, this seemed and felt like it was a step backwards. It felt more like the animation of what Disney used to create, which appealed to me. Sadly, that was all that appealed to me about the film. Visually I was on board allowing my eyes to enjoy the moments, but with everything else it seemed overdone, clichéd, and pointless.
Sadly, unlike most films, the bad outweighs the good in this film. Outside of the plot being completely pointless, the actors who voiced our characters did not give us anything worth remembering. Ben Stiller is overused, and with his current influx in the film market, I only see his stock going bottom-up in the near future. Chris Rock managed to squeak out his worst performance in years as a one-dimensional character that focus' solely on himself. With no emotion or care, it seemed like every word out of his mouth embodied some racial stereotype that was toned down for a PG or kid-friendly audience. To add to more of the pointless nature of the film was Jada Pinkett Smith, who proved that Will is the breadwinner for the family. Her character was so underdeveloped that I nearly forgot that she was in the film after the opening credit sequence. Everyone was shallow, unsubstantial, and just your seemingly overused technique in the film industry. I was surprised that anyone was able to take these actors for any more then ten minutes, much less an hour and a half.
I am getting tired of the Pro-American; New York City has so much tragedy, moments in movies. While I will agree that what happened on September 11th was horrid in nature, there is no reason to announce that New York is the best city in the world. I live in a wonderful city, that has a zoo, and probably has animals that would have acted just like these in Madagascar, but instead I had to watch as pro-New York actors did whatever they could to promote a city that needs no more screen time. I am just so tired of this in movies and Madagascar seemed to drill it in even more. I think it had to do with the fact that there was no story present to overwhelm these slight discomforting moments. In most films you have an engrossing story that sometimes patches these slow moments where jokes becomes drills and instead of laughing you get headaches. With Madagascar there was no story, so we were forced for an hour and a half to listen to jokes that were not funny. How old is the film Castaway? Did we need to use this joke in this film? Oh, and if that joke didn't work, how about the overuse of words like "crack-a-lackin" which sent a shiver down my spine every time that zebra said it. Poor writing lead to a non-existent story, which ultimately lead to me nearly falling asleep in this film.
Finally, the penguins were the life of this film, and we could have used more screen time with them. In fact, if the entire film were to be made on just these little tuxedoed creatures, I would be the first in line to see it. They were cute, actually had funny lines, and highlighted some of the more creative scenes of the film. The same could be said for the monkey's that somehow were forgotten about. There were some really creative moments to this film that were just overshadowed by the horrid rank of the rest of the film. For example, one of my favorite moments (and only moment) was when Alex picked up the phone to call for help, and all the humans heard were growls. That was an interesting concept that could have been built up a bit more, but instead, we were forced to witness growing scenes with "We like to move it, move it" being overplayed in the background. That song was just another hole in this already sinking ship.
Overall, I was not impressed and thought this was one of the worst children's films released in years. From the poorly valued voices to the completely missing plot, this film gave kids the impression that if you go against who you are truly meant to be, to want to be out in the wild and be yourself, wellbe prepared to loose friends. This film was a disgrace to children and vegetarians everywhere!
Grade: * out of *****