Just good, clear, silly animated entertainment.

Rating: Null/10 (14 February 2009)

State-of-the-art animation, mostly witty dialog, with a sub-theme of friends being there for each other. But mostly just a mindlessly entertaining 80-minute cartoon.
The voice of the main character is Ben Stiller as the lion, Alex. Other stars who lend their vocal talents include Chris Rock as Marty, the zebra. David Schwimmer as Melman, the giraffe. Jada Pinkett Smith as Gloria, the dainty hippo. And once they get to Madagascar, Sacha Baron Cohen (of 'Borat' fame) as Julien, the leader of the little creatures.
The story begins in the New York Central Park Zoo, with the animals conversing about how boring their lives are, and how it would be nice to get out "in the wild." It turns out the Penguins are also longing for the colder weather and have begun to dig a tunnel to Antarctica, which of course goes nowhere.
However the zebra escapes and decides to take a train to Connecticut, and his friends go after him. When all of them get cornered at Grand Central Station, then crated, they end up on an ocean liner, along with the penguins, who commandeer the ship and head to Antarctica. But the 4 zoo animals argue, and end up knocking their crates into the ocean, and they all wash up on a shore.
Since the animals can't really tell where they are, we learn that they are in Madagascar because we see an abandoned plane, crashed into the top of a large tree, identified as "Madagascar Tours." The main of the story involves the 4 zoo animals in this new environment, and the small Lemurs defending themselves from their predators. The lion, zebra, hippo, and giraffe end up helping them.
We also see the 4 penguins in Antarctica, standing in the dark and cold, uttering "This sucks." The ship eventually returns to Madagascar but it is out of fuel. Maybe Madagascar 2 will take up there.