Flawless fun in Africa

Rating: 9/10 (16 August 2009)

What can I say, I'm stunned. It's that good.
The creators of Madagascar use computer animation to boldly take slapstick to the next level. How 'bout duking it out with a nice old lady? Hey, let's run her over with a car! Something you'd expect to happen maybe in an ultra-gory mafia movie, but here it's fun for the entire family. But she rebounds Terminator-style, so don't worry, ma, it's only pixels.
You could watch this movie scene-by-scene and it'd still be great fun. Those penguins are amazing. Rico ... manual!!! I like Skipper best of all (with Private, Kowalski and Rico a close second), and he's voiced by Tom McGrath, who's actually moonlighting as a sync actor but the movie's director in the real life. No mean feat. There's a cute lost son story for the kids, and lots of slick, crass urban fun for the adults.
This is the Blues Brothers for the 21. century. I'll bet this'll go classic!