Madagascar (Full Frame) (2005)

"...the gags are funny and the characters endearing.  Claudia Puig, USA Today
"...the images have a brighter-than-life vivacity.  Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
"MADAGASCAR offers plenty of amusement...   Andrew Osmond, Sight and Sound
"A great family fun...wonderfully funny!  Joel Siegel, Good Morning America
"Forget life lessons: I much prefer a lemur king doing the robot.  Kimberley Jones, Austin Chronicle
"...a brisk and lively getaway with genuine personality.  Peter Debruge, Premiere
"Savvy family entertainment.  Richard Corliss, Time
"It's bright and spry, giggly and bouncy, but also cuddly...  Robert Wilonsky, Dallas Observer

Editor's Note The friendship between a New York City lion and zebra is tested when fate brings them out to the unforgiving wilderness in this computer-animated DreamWorks feature. Chris Rock does the voice of Marty the Zebra, whose longing to explore beyond his cushy Central Park Zoo boundaries is the impetus that ultimately strands him and his pals on the shores of savage Madagascar. Marty loves the new, edible scenery, but his best friend Alex (voiced by Ben Stiller) the Lion begins to starve since his diet of thick steaks has been cut off, and the rump of his friend starts to look mighty tasty. Their other friends, a hypochondriac giraffe (David Schwimmer) and a sassy hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith), try their best to think of a solution as the call of the wild slowly turns the starving Alex into Marty's worst nightmare. Meanwhile the hilariously self-aggrandizing King of the Ocelots (Sacha Cohen) has a plan to use Marty to repel their own carnivore problem. This kid-oriented comedy stays adult-friendly every step of the way thanks to a clever script that mixes New Yorker humor and even some existentialism in with the pratfalls and spit-takes. Jolts of comedic brilliance are supplied by some Arctic-bound escaped con penguins, and a couple of literary apes. It's not a musical, but classic songs from the likes of Louis Armstrong and Sammy Davis Jr. keep the montages flowing loose and sassy.

	Ben Stiller - Voice Of
	Chris Rock - Voice Of
	Clare De Chenu, et. al. - Editor
	David Schwimmer - Voice Of
	Eric Darnell, et. al. - Director
	Hans Zimmer, et. al. - Original Music By
	Jada Pinkett Smith - Voice Of
	Mark Burton, et. al. - Writer
	Teresa Cheng, et. al. - Producer

USA Today
"The animation is visually stunning, and the animals' stylized rendering and friendly look is in keeping with the energetic mood of the movie." 05/27/2005 p.8E

Entertainment Weekly
"[A] delightfully wacked new digitally animated comedy....Untamed fun." 06/03/2005 p.61-62

Sight and Sound
"MADAGASCAR offers plenty of amusement..." 08/01/2005 p.60

Premiere
"Ben Stiller and Chris Rock's characters may be digital but the actors' personas propel their every move." 02/01/2006 p.106

James Berardinelli's ReelViews 6 of 10
Eventually, it had to happen: a computer-animated dud. It's surprising it has taken this long, and we have been spoiled by the high quality of the product, with such winning titles as Toy Story, Shrek, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and others. But, with the death of traditional animation and the proliferation of titles in this arena, a slip in quality was inevitable. Thus far, 2005 has seen two of these movies: Robots and Madagascar. And, although Robots was mediocre entertainment, Madagascar slips a notch below that. - James Berardinelli

Chicago Sun-Times 7 of 10
From their earliest days when Mickey Mouse was still in black and white, cartoons have created a divide between animals who are animals and animals who are human -- or, if not human in the sense that Paris Hilton is human, then at least human in the sense that they speak, sing, have personalities and are voiced by actors like Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer and Jada Pinkett Smith...Now comes "Madagascar," an inessential but passably amusing animated comedy that has something very tricky going on. What happens if the human side of a cartoon animal is only, as they say, a veneer of civilization? Consider Alex the Lion. In the Central Park Zoo, he's a star, singing "New York, New York" and looking forward to school field trips because he likes to show off for his audiences...The movie is much too safe to follow its paradoxes to their logical conclusion, and that's probably just as well. The problem, though, is that once it gets them to the wild, it doesn't figure out what to do with them there, and the plot seems to stall. "Madagascar" is funny, especially at the beginning, and good-looking in a retro cartoon way, but in a world where the stakes have been raised by "Finding Nemo," "Shrek" and "The Incredibles," it's a throwback to a more conventional kind of animated entertainment. It'll be fun for the smaller kids, but there's not much crossover appeal for their parents. - Roger Ebert

ReelViews 7 of 10
Eventually, it had to happen: a computer-animated dud. It's surprising it has taken this long, and we have been spoiled by the high quality of the product, with such winning titles as Toy Story, Shrek, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and others. But, with the death of traditional animation and the proliferation of titles in this arena, a slip in quality was inevitable. Thus far, 2005 has seen two of these movies: Robots and Madagascar. And, although Robots was mediocre entertainment, Madagascar slips a notch below that...Madagascar will make money because parents are always on the look-out for "safe" family films, and, in general, animated fare meets that criterion. The problem here is that, while there's nothing offensive about this movie, it's not especially entertaining. I often gauge how compelling a motion picture is by how many times I glance at my watch. With Madagascar, that number was higher than it should be for a film with such a short (85-minute) running length. With so many other options available at this time of the year, my advice is to give this movie a pass in theaters and rent it when it's available on video. At least then, if you or the kids get bored through the long stretches in which nothing happens, the fast-forward button is close at hand. - James Berardinelli