Little to offer. A story of equal worth to Saturday cartoons.

Rating: 6/10 (2 January 2006)

DreamWorks creates another animated feature that has very little story and ultimately very little resolution. I would place this movie well below Shrek, but significantly above the annoying "Shark Tale." The characters in this movie are very likable, although Chris Rock's zebra occasionally gets annoying. I found Ben Stiller's work to be very funny. The most unique and hilarious character is Julian, the king of the Lemurs. His off-the-wall strange comments add a lot to the movie. The penguins were also great additions.
The plot itself is very thin. The animals escape the Central Park Zoo to see the "wild." There are a lot of New Yorker jokes, and even a crack at Jersey. Occasionally there will be segments that are nothing but back-to-back gags with songs in the background. They would be more tolerable, perhaps, if the gags were actually funny. The abundance of gag-to-songs made me want to stuff my ears with popcorn (I was eating popcorn at the time).
An optimist would call the animation zany. It is angular in nature, very bright, and has very little shading. Unlike "Finding Nemo," there is little realism to the characters (which may be a good or bad thing).
Ultimately, this movie has little to offer except the occasional gag.