What's at Ashley Square?
By: Billy Cheek
Issue date: 11/14/08 Section: Features
MADAGASCAR: ESCAPE 2 AFRICA
This stuff is nuts. Imagine giving a 10-year-old kid with Attention Deficit Disorder a cast of psychotic animal characters, a list of sight gags, a pencil, paper and the vague direction to "make up some entertaining scenes." Got that? OK, now imagine taking the resulting manuscript to a stuffy studio executive who, after a quick glance, exclaims "Wonderful! Don't cut a thing! Just let me reach into the family-friendly plot box and we'll get started."
Now perhaps you can imagine Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. The story follows former zoo animals Alex the lion, voiced by Ben Stiller; Marty the zebra, Chris Rock; Gloria the hippo, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Melman the giraffe, David Schwimmer, as they encounter and begin to assimilate with their wild African cousins. Apparently the first Madagascar chronicled the journey from a New York zoo to the eponymous island. In this one we go from the island to the mainland itself.
Half of the movie is a torrent of animated action and comedy that seems specifically designed to hold the attention of the lowest common denominator. Seriously, if your child can't sit through this, it's going to be a long 18 years. Which is not to say that it's all bad. In fact there are plenty of inspired visuals and truly funny moments as the action skips wildly between a bunch of completely unrelated storylines (they do all come together in the end ... sort of). It's almost refreshing to see an animated film proceed with such exuberant abandonment, throwing so much at the viewer that any "missed" gags are almost swallowed up by the "hits."
I say almost because that studio executive we talked about earlier saddled Madagascar 2 with a hefty load of sickly-sweet messages. Those messages are: 1) Individuality is so very precious and 2) Don't let differences stand in the way of true love and/or friendship.
Worse, in order to convey these messages there are quite a few seemingly interminable scenes of unbridled sincerity between the main characters. Worse, in order to convey these messages there is a Lion King-like subplot in which redemption comes about through differences. There is simply no place for such sincerity in a movie where the penguins hijack the safari bus and the little old lady whips the lion's you-know-what. Three times.
Other than that, I have only one complaint: you know that phrase "hippopotamus sensuality?" The one you've never heard or thought about hearing or even thought about thinking about? Well, be prepared to have a reckoning with that very phrase about halfway through this movie. Turn that one over a few times.
- features@thedepauw.com
This stuff is nuts. Imagine giving a 10-year-old kid with Attention Deficit Disorder a cast of psychotic animal characters, a list of sight gags, a pencil, paper and the vague direction to "make up some entertaining scenes." Got that? OK, now imagine taking the resulting manuscript to a stuffy studio executive who, after a quick glance, exclaims "Wonderful! Don't cut a thing! Just let me reach into the family-friendly plot box and we'll get started."
Now perhaps you can imagine Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. The story follows former zoo animals Alex the lion, voiced by Ben Stiller; Marty the zebra, Chris Rock; Gloria the hippo, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Melman the giraffe, David Schwimmer, as they encounter and begin to assimilate with their wild African cousins. Apparently the first Madagascar chronicled the journey from a New York zoo to the eponymous island. In this one we go from the island to the mainland itself.
Half of the movie is a torrent of animated action and comedy that seems specifically designed to hold the attention of the lowest common denominator. Seriously, if your child can't sit through this, it's going to be a long 18 years. Which is not to say that it's all bad. In fact there are plenty of inspired visuals and truly funny moments as the action skips wildly between a bunch of completely unrelated storylines (they do all come together in the end ... sort of). It's almost refreshing to see an animated film proceed with such exuberant abandonment, throwing so much at the viewer that any "missed" gags are almost swallowed up by the "hits."
I say almost because that studio executive we talked about earlier saddled Madagascar 2 with a hefty load of sickly-sweet messages. Those messages are: 1) Individuality is so very precious and 2) Don't let differences stand in the way of true love and/or friendship.
Worse, in order to convey these messages there are quite a few seemingly interminable scenes of unbridled sincerity between the main characters. Worse, in order to convey these messages there is a Lion King-like subplot in which redemption comes about through differences. There is simply no place for such sincerity in a movie where the penguins hijack the safari bus and the little old lady whips the lion's you-know-what. Three times.
Other than that, I have only one complaint: you know that phrase "hippopotamus sensuality?" The one you've never heard or thought about hearing or even thought about thinking about? Well, be prepared to have a reckoning with that very phrase about halfway through this movie. Turn that one over a few times.
- features@thedepauw.com
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