The kids liked it, but enough with the anti-meat cartoons!

Rating: Null/10 (23 June 2005)

Madagascar is a passably good cartoon for the little ones.
I found it much, much more entertaining than say the recent film Robots. And the hour and a half during which none of my children spoke, squirmed, wanted more stuff (popcorn or drinks), or needed to go to the bathroom, suggested to me that it succeeds very well at entertaining its target audience. It also had enough adult oriented humour so that I wasn't merely suffering through it (like I suffered through Robots, or Pokiemon the movie, or the Cat in the Hat).
I found some of the other reviewers comments rather amusing... One person suggested not to waste money or time on the movie "unless you are under the age of 12." Thats rather funny, because I'm pretty sure that the under 12 set is the intended audience. I get the feeling that some reviewers aren't able to appreciate the movie from the point of view of its target audience.
Many of the best scenes are near the beginning -- the escape by the subway. And the penguins are terrific.
The whole animals thinking and acting like people, was a bit tiresome. But animals acting like animals are rarely seen in movies. Its hard to believe that a lion would forget its predatory nature, just because it gets its fill of steaks.
I really enjoyed the contrast between what one dreams about and what one really finds ("this suck" says one of the penguins looking at the ice bound wastes of Antarica), but I think that could have been played up a bit more -- for example I would like to have seen the Zebra discover that life is not so good in the wild, not just because of a friend turned predator, but for all the other problems involved. I would like to have seen them portray New York more realistically (the crime, pollution, litter etc.).
Objections. There is a really pervasive anti-meat animal rights campaign going on in kids films these days. Sharks that have a 12ve step no-fish program; Vegitarian sharks Lions that eat bugs rather than talking warthogs or meercats the horrible monster "sharp tooth" in Land before time
And this conspiracy is certainly not new... Dalmatians that are too precious to be turned into something useful (coats). The tears we shed over the death of Bambi's mother death... etc.
Although I enjoyed the movie, the anti meat message was rather annoying.
I suppose I agree with what Ebert said in reviewing the movie that seeing the lion picking his teeth while relaxing on a zebra skin rug would send some kids crying from the theatre.
Not my kids though (boys ages 6, 9 & 12), they would have loved to see that...
but other kids, normal ones (i.e., not my blood thirsty crew), might have been a little disturbed to see the environmentally natural predator / prey relationship explored in a movie.
I give the movie top marks for bringing up the touchy issue, and for the amusing animation of animals turning into steaks (which made me a little hungry), but would criticise them for not following it to its nature conclusion... and instead promoting once again some kind of semi-vegetarianism (I believe some types of vegetarians are allowed to eat fish) reminiscent of the Lion King where bugs were OK to eat.