Very mixed film

Rating: 6/10 (26 June 2009)

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa The Good: Madagascar 2 is a very funny film, and I laughed quite frequently throughout. The penguins are even better this time around, and the comedy is far, FAR improved from the last movie. The animation is terrific, though I still don't understand why they had to make all the characters so blocky. Seeing amazingly detailed fur rippling on a character model that looks like it was made from legos is very disconcerting. Still, the movie overall looks great, and is a definite improvement over the original.
The Bad: The comedy is great, but the story was weak and every single attempt at seriousness fell utterly flat. Amidst all the great comedy, the film decided to add unwholesome amounts of painfully bad dramatic scenes, which clash utterly with the hilarious moments in which the movie doesn't take itself seriously. Every time the film tried to tug at my heartstrings or attempt to extract some sort of emotion out of me, I just wanted to throw up. It's almost like experiencing the tonal changes from the two acts of Hancock every five minutes. I think that this is largely because the main characters in Madagascar simply aren't terribly good. While Shrek or most Pixar movies have memorable casts of hilarious yet well-developed characters, Madagascar just seems to have placeholders that try to have personality, but really are overshadowed by the supporting characters (cough penguins cough). Finally, this film borrows so much from other movies that it's almost plagiarism. A main character wants to dance instead of doing what the others do? Gee, where did that come from? A scheming lion uncle attempts to overthrow his kind brother while getting on his son's good side? How original! I usually don't mind films borrowing from others, but it was so blatant in this one that I sometimes wanted to scream.
The Consensus: Overall, I don't know whether to recommend this movie or not. If it had just kept it's tone lighthearted throughout (like Shrek 2, Over the Hedge, etc.) of just stayed serious and dramatic (The Lion King, Wall-E), it might have succeeded. As it is, it tries to mix two very contrasting tones and ends up something of a mess. Still, it's better than the first, it's quite funny, and I'm sure children will enjoy it, so I guess on a Saturday night with the kids, you could certainly do worse.