A great sequel, and IT IS even better than the first movie.

Rating: Null/10 (4 August 2009)

In one of the DVD extras Ben Stiller comments that they wanted to make this second Madagascar movie better than the first, and from my vantage point they did it. There was more going on, the story was more interesting, and the dialog was more clever.
This movie actually opens with a short scene to show how, many years earlier, the New York lion Alex was captured as a cub and how he ended up in the zoo, followed by his and the other animals' escape that resulted in becoming stranded on Madagascar.
After that suitably short flashback, the movie picks up where the first one left off. The band of Penguins have made their way to Madagascar and they, along with the locals, are working diligently to restore a long-lost crashed plane to flight worthiness. The images and dialog are so inventive and interesting. When they finally get airborne, headed back to New York, it is clear to us they will never make it.
In yet another inventive and funny sequence, the plane ends up crash-landing in Africa, coincidentally the same region where Alex had been born and where his father and mother still lived, peacefully along with all the other animals. So the main of this movie involves how the group from Madagascar integrate into the existing African animal dynamics, and how they must cooperate to save the animals from an unexpected drought. Very inventive, very interesting and entertaining movie.
Ben Stiller is back as the voice of Alex the lion. As are Chris Rock as Marty the Zebra, David Schwimmer as Melman the giraffe, Jada Pinkett Smith as Gloria the Hippo, and Sacha Baron Cohen as the little animal Julien.
New actors include (deceased) Bernie Mac who does a great job as Zuba, the father of Alex. And Alec Baldwin as Makunga, the lion who covets Zuba's leadership, and who is always trying to make trouble for Zuba.