Good natured fun family film

Rating: 7/10 (17 August 2008)

In this 2005 DreamWorks animation, a group of animals are left alone on the island of Madagascar after a mishap involving Marty the zebra trying to escape.
Having seen trailers and read reviews, I must be honest and say that I wasn't expecting much more than a good natured fun family film, which it was, but a still enjoyable and funny one with good natured ideologies about friendship and loyalty and a good sense of humour to make it a fun watch.
With an A list cast of voices including Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, Sacha Baron Cohen and Jaden Pinkett Smith, the film had created a good hype coming to it's release a couple of years ago, and now the success was expected and a sequel is currently a couple of weeks away, and with the same cast, it will hopefully be as good as the first.
The whole concept of a lion, a zebra, a giraffe and a hippo all being best friends is great to even start, and then we see Alex the Lion dancing and showing off for the crowd and the film starts to live up to the expected family fun genre and we are served heavy doses of slapstick comedy and many humorous references to other films, including Cast Away and American Beauty.
The plot is well written with humour and drama encoded in just the right way. However the whole ideology of going away from the zoo could have been developed better and when on the island, the use of the surroundings could have been used for extra comedy as the humour fades away towards the end, which is quite a big anticlimax and seems very rushed.
Nonetheless the humour is there, and is driven by the different personalities of the animals. The egotistical lion, the open-minded zebra, the luckless giraffe and the stubborn hippo all collide and drive the film forward.
The visual effects are good, though I personally never take them into account to make a film and with the plot and characters, make an enjoyable film with good natured ideologies.