Very funny at points but it lacks heart and the main characters pale beside the support

Rating: Null/10 (11 December 2005)

Alex, Marty, Melman and Gloria all live in the New York zoo, where they are good draws and get regular meals. However Marty dreams of the wild and freedom and, when a crack group of penquins seem to offer him a way out, he takes it. His friends find he is missing and set out to convince him to return, catching him at Grand Central Station, only to get caught by the police. With the people convinced that the animals cannot return to the zoo, the four are shipped out to the wild but a shipping accident sees them washed up in a wilderness that their city live has not prepared them for.
Looking a lot more cartoony than similar film, I decided to give Madagascar a miss until I saw the short film from the penguins and decided to give it a try. The plot is a worthy try to repeat the fun and heart of films such as Toy Story but, although it delivers the former, the latter is lacking. It tries to have some sort of moral by the end but it doesn't really come off and it would have been better not to try at all. However this is a minor problem because mostly it is very funny, producing some big laughs as well as being consistently funny. The biggest laughs come from the side characters such as the penguins, the lemurs and the two monkeys which is great but it means that the main characters are almost begrudgingly returned to the screen at times while the actual plot is where the sags come in.
This is a bit of a problem and again robs the material of its heart but I didn't really care that much because I was laughing consistently across the whole film. The star cast work well. Stiller was actually pretty good while both Rock and Schwimmer were really well-suited to their characters and the humour. Smith was more "there" than she was doing anything, but she was alright if unimpressive. However all four of them are put in the shade by the support cast  a fact not helped that the support have the best material to work with. Cohen naturally steals the show with an outrageously funny performance that had me in stitches and he was well supported by an unusually restrained Cedric the Entertainer. The penguins also combined to produce a wonderful subplot to the film and their planning and scheming was hilarious; likewise, although in a smaller role, the posh monkey was very funny.
Overall this is a consistently funny film that survives despite the fact that the narrative and the four main characters are actually not its strengths while those looking for the heart of Toy Story will be disappointed. However it has more than enough laughs to be worthwhile and the supporting cast and characters are really where the film is at.