Better than the Original

Rating: 7/10 (16 March 2017)

Who would have thought? A sequel that is actually better, and more enjoyable, than the original. Actually, as I mentioned I found the original to be rather boring and pointless, and also somewhat lacked a plot, but it turned out that this one was actually a lot more engaging. In fact it felt as if the original was simply made as a lead up to this one. Mind you, since the first one did have a large part set in New York, the movie would have probably been too long to work all that well, but still it seemed as if this film succeeded where the first had, in my opinion, failed.
First of all it had a better plot, namely Alex the Lion was born in Africa but had been captured by hunters and taken to the Central Park Zoo in New York. However, after being sent back into the wild, and landing up in Madagascar, they are left to fend for themselves. Well, the penguins build a plane and launch into the air, but unfortunately they run out of petrol and end up crash landing in the middle of Kenya. In fact they land up in the exact same reserve that Alex originally came from, and he even encounters his father. The problem is that because he has been gone for so long, and been raised in the zoo, he hasn't gone through the traditional rites of passage that all lions have to go through.
Like a lot of sequels all of the favourite, and not so favourite (namely the Lemurs) have returned. They even have the psychotic little old lady from the first movie that spends her time running around bashing people on their head with her handbag. Now she is on safari, and as is typical she has her own ways of doing things, and surviving. Mind you, she does actually take on a life of her own in this film, and becomes one of the better characters. Okay, she was a pretty cool character in the first movie, but she was only playing a bit role there as where whereas here is it taking a much more major role.
In the end though I thought that this was actually a pretty cool movie, and quite enjoyable as well, though it will be difficult knowing what is going on unless you have sat through the original film.