Funny and fast...but fast forgotten too!

Rating: 6/10 (17 April 2006)

Handmade animation is dead! CGI-animation take the pole position nowadays... but made this fact movies really better? In fact, when traditional, handmade animation was declared dead, why, for example, did in early 2005 the new DVD-release of Disney's "Bambi" (first released in... 1942!!!) was sold over 1 million times on the first day? And why did the modern handmade features from Japan, like "Spirited Away" or "Howls Moving Castle" did still outrun almost every CG-feature of today in the IMDb-voting too? In fact too, because all of this mentioned movies have something, that seems to be totally forgotten today: Spirit, soul, fantasy, mixed with reality, depth, truth and credible characters! Gags are only on the second, or third, or even the last place. It seemed, that CG-movies of today are all build up only on a rapid-fire of gags and crude jokes. "Madagascar" went the same way. You can see it, laugh about it (and i admit, i laughed too on all the funny gags)... but forget it in a few years, maybe earlier. There is no really depth and no serious conflict in it. When Alex tried to eat Marty, the audience know, that nothing evil will happened to Marty at any time. The film did not trying to develop a real conflict here, and everyone do know this. It is not a conflict at all, only another "launching pad" for the next fired battery of gags and jokes. Some little secondary creatures was hunted and eaten by other animals, maybe to show the "real nature", but this unsuccessful try to add something to think about it to the film was very fast over tuned by the next crude gag. To compare, take a look on the famous scene in "Bambi", when Bambi's poor mother was killed: This is really something to think about it, there was real depth, real danger, real death! And if i look on jokes in classic animated movies of yesterday and see the new features of today, i realized, that yesterday's gags was of finer quality and did not stand above the characters, but a lot of gags of today seemed only in for the reason to cover a weak plot, simple, one dimensional characters and to hide the absence of depth.
Don't' get me wrong: "Madagascar" is not a bad movie, it is really funny, but surely not one of the kind of movies, that will captivating and move you and become a immortal classic. On the DVD are some bonus-tracks, in which one member of the film-crew mentioned his wish, that "Madagascar" maybe become an immortal classic that will captivate future generations too like the old, classic animated features do until today. But i think, this will not happen. It is a funny and fast, but fast forgotten movie too.