Has meat, but not in the story

Rating: 7/10 (8 June 2012)

It is pretty clear to even the most unaware film consumer that there are two different types of animation and they aren't hand drawn and CGI. They are Dreamworks and Pixar, one who makes cute, yet sort of flat animated pictures, and the other who makes essential animated films that are deep and very moving. Madagascar falls in the latter category of being kind and positive in its spirits, but a tad too slapsticky to provide efficient and quality entertainment. It's a feast for the eyes, not the heart.
Yet there truly is nothing wrong with that. Our story takes place at the Central Park Zoo where Alex the lion (voiced by Ben Stiller) is guaranteed to put on a great show for his audience. He is boisterous, cocky, and determined to keep his high status with the people with his line of trinkets and accessories for sale there. Alex's friends are a zebra, Marty (Chris Rock), a hippo, Gloria (Jada Pinkett Smith), and a giraffe, Melmen (David Schwimmer).
When Marty begins to hunger for life outside of the mundane four cage walls, he escapes to Grand Central Station, only to be followed by his three friends. Once they're apprehended at the station they are taken, crated up, and shipped off to a Kenyan Wildlife preserve. It just so happens that four maniacal penguins escaped from the zoo as well, and take command on the ship hoping to cruise to Antarctica, and during all this camaraderie, the four crates with Alex, Marty, Gloria, and Melmen fall off the ship and are washed up onto Madagascar.
That was a mouthful. The only one truly satisfied at this colossal misunderstanding is Marty, who is glad to be in the wild, where he can live free and become a new zebra. The four wind up meeting a colony of furry little critters, all governed by King Julien (Sacha Baron Cohen) who sings the infectious anthem "I Like to Move It" twice in the entire picture.
There is a lot of manic situations in Madagascar, a film that occupies a meager runtime of just seventy-nine minutes, yet in that time a conflict is introduced, characters rapidly appear, havoc occurs, a conclusion is tacked on, and boom, the credits roll. Everything moves in such a rushed pace it's a wonder why the film can't take time to stop and catch its breath. It appears to run out of steam when the animals wash up on the island.
Now here is where we can definitely tell that there are two different animation classes in the mix. If this was a Pixar film, its star power wouldn't be used as a gimmick. Oh, Pixar uses celebrities in their pictures, but ever notice how they don't really boast them? Tom Hanks and Tim Allen lend their voices in all three Toy Story pictures, but they're so natural and unobtrusive that they are never a distracting element. The problem with Madagascar is never do we feel that these characters are themselves. We feel they are Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, Jada Pinkett Smith, David Schwimmer, and Sacha Baron Cohen, respectively.
Another sign of the two animation teams among us is when we see an animated picture become too reliant on bathroom humor and contrived wittiness rather than sentimentality and storytelling. Madagascar has a nice retro look to it, but that can't disguise its elementary storytelling and the thin effect it has on audience members. Kids will embrace it helpfully, and there parents will too seeing as many more viewings will become inevitable, but with such quality works out there such as Lilo and Stitch, Shrek, and Toy Story why waste time on the inessential? Voiced by: Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, Jada Pinkett Smith, David Schwimmer, Sacha Baron Cohen, and Cedric the Entertainer. Directed by: Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath.