Acceptable family entertainment, but it disheartens me to hear a sequel is already underway

Rating: 6/10 (11 July 2006)

DreamWorks Animation division is not exactly the best when it comes to animated motion pictures - from their early days of CGI productions they have repeatedly tried to mimic the success of Pixar. Of course, sometimes it was entirely coincidental ("Antz" was already gearing up for production when "A Bug's Life" was in its early stages) - but there's no doubting that they have tried to replicate the adult-humor of features such as "Toy Story." It's worked once or twice. The edge of "Shrek" - and especially its pop-culture-reference-laden sequel - turned out to be entertaining and witty. But for every "Shrek" there's a "Shark Tale" (still one of the most painful animated films I've ever had to sit through).
"Madagascar" follows suit of "Shark Tale," similarly featuring terrible animation that looks cheap and unappealing - but it's a lot better than "Shark Tale" because it's at least reasonably entertaining.
Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer and Jada Pinkett Smith voice four animals living in a New York City zoo. Stiller is a proud but timid lion, Rock is a curious zebra, Schwimmer is a hypochondriac giraffe who wears tissue boxes on his hooves (a reference to Howard Hughes in his later life, of course), and Smith is a street-wise hippo.
Marty the zebra dares to venture outside the zoo one day by escaping rather carelessly, and ends up getting himself and his pals transported to a new zoo after their journey through New York City scares a few people. Marty just wants to see his home land, but soon they're being shipped in crates barely small enough to fit their bodies.
However, due to a series of strange circumstances involving scheming penguins, the ocean liner's path is diverted and the four animals find themselves stranded on the island of Madagascar, where they are faced with a wild environment in which they must defend for themselves against other animals and a weird pack of natives who worship them as gods.
The movie's animation, as I mentioned above, is slipshod and amateurish. It looks as if Dreamworks had no care at all to spend time on the quality of their work here. The vocal talents are a bit self-conscious, too. Stiller - as much as I like him in regular comedies like "Starsky and Hutch" - is a bit too self-aware and I never felt like any of the characters were really characters - the entire time I just kept imagining Stiller and Rock in a studio recording their parts.
Schwimmer and Smith both fail to leave an impression due to the restrictions of the script - Schwimmer's giraffe is just an ultra-nervous weirdo who's, quite frankly, rather annoying - and Smith doesn't really do much of anything except pop up now and again. It's really Stiller and Rock who are the two main vocal talents here - their characters are given the most room to grow in the script - but they're just average at best.
Overall this really is just an "average" movie - it's not outstanding but it serves its purpose as amiable family entertainment. It doesn't contain the clever satirical wit of a Pixar film and neither does it appeal to adults and children equally in the same way most Pixar features do - but it's a lot, lot better than "Shark Tale."