Psycho's Movie Reviews #440: Madagascar (2005)

Madagascar is a 2005 American computer-animated comedy adventure film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by DreamWorks Pictures. The film was directed by Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath (in McGrath's feature directorial debut) and written by Mark Burton, Billy Frolick, Darnell, and McGrath. The film stars Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, Jada Pinkett Smith, Sacha Baron Cohen, Cedric the Entertainer, and Andy Richter voicing a group of animals from the Central Park Zoo who find themselves stranded on the island of Madagascar.

Released on May 27, 2005, Madagascar received mixed reviews from critics but was a success at the box office, becoming the sixth highest-grossing film of 2005. It launched the Madagascar franchise which includes the sequels Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008) and Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted (2012); the spin-off film Penguins of Madagascar (2014); several short films, television series, and specials; and a number of video games, theme park attractions, and live stage shows.

Plot

At the Central Park Zoo, Marty the zebra celebrates his tenth birthday but has grown bored with his daily routine and longs to experience the wild. Marty's best friend is Alex the lion, who enjoys showing off for the public and his celebrity status as "the king of New York". Alex attempts to cheer Marty up, but Marty, still unsatisfied, learns that the zoo's penguins—Skipper, Kowalski, Rico, and Private—are trying to escape, and follows them out. Alex, Melman the giraffe, and Gloria the hippopotamus pursue Marty and attempt to convince him to return. The four, along with the penguins and two chimpanzees named Mason and Phil, converge at Grand Central Station where the authorities sedate them using tranquillizer guns. Under pressure from anti-captivity activists, the zoo is forced to ship the escaped animals by sea to a Kenyan wildlife preserve. During their travels, the penguins escape and take over the ship, intent on taking it to Antarctica. Their antics on the bridge cause the crates containing Alex, Marty, Melman, and Gloria to fall overboard and wash ashore on Madagascar.

The animals come across a pack of lemurs led by King Julien XIII. The predatory fossa attack the lemurs, but are scared off by Alex's fearsome appearance. Alex blames Marty for the group's predicament and attempts to signal for help to get back to civilization. Marty finds the wild to be exactly what he was looking for, and Gloria and Melman soon join him in enjoying the island. Alex eventually comes around, but without the raw steaks he was provided at the zoo, hunger sets in and his prey drive begins to show. King Julien has the lemurs befriend the zoo animals in the hope that Alex's presence will keep the fossa at bay, despite his adviser Maurice's warnings about Alex's predatory nature. When Alex loses control and attacks Marty, King Julien realizes that he is a threat and banishes him to the predator side of the island, where the fossa live. Seeing what has happened to Alex, and how dangerous the wild can be, Marty begins to regret his decision to leave the zoo.

The penguins, having found Antarctica to be inhospitable, land the ship at Madagascar. Seeing the chance to return Alex to New York, Marty crosses over to the predator side and attempts to convince the grizzled, starving Alex to return, but Alex refuses out of fear that he will attack Marty again. The fossa attack Marty, and though Gloria, Melman, and the penguins come to the rescue, they are outnumbered. Alex overcomes his predatory instincts, rescues his friends, and scares the fossa away from the lemur territory forever. The lemurs regain their respect for Alex, and the penguins satisfy his hunger by feeding him sushi. As the lemurs throw a farewell celebration for the foursome, the penguins decide not to break the news that the ship has run out of fuel, thus leaving them stranded on the island.

Production

According to co-director Tom McGrath, the idea for Madagascar began as a once-sentence prompt, and it took two years of development for the idea to be refined to the point where the four main characters were finalized. In 1998, DreamWorks and PDI had started development on an animated film titled Rockumentary, which featured a Beatles-esque penguin rock band. The idea was scrapped, but after production on Madagascar started, director Eric Darnell decided to revive the penguins, but make them a commando unit instead of a rock band. In the original script Gloria was going to be pregnant due to being part of the zoo's breeding program and the baby was going to be born on the island and Melman, who is revealed to have a crush on Gloria would help raise the child like it was his own son. The idea was cut from the final version because the test audiences felt like the pregnancy plotline was too risky and mature for a family film especially young children who felt uncomfortable with the pairing of Melman and Gloria and may have gotten the film a PG-13 rating. However, the idea of Melman having a crush on Gloria was reused for the sequels. The lead characters were formerly to Be a lion, a zebra, a hippo, and an Okapi. As a result, the character, Melman, was changed and played by a giraffe which is a more familiar animal. Originally, Julien was intended to be a minor character with only two lines. However, when Sacha Baron Cohen auditioned for the role, he improvised not only an Indian accent, but eight minutes of dialogue for his recording. The filmmakers found Cohen's performance so funny that they rewrote the script and made Julien a much more prominent character in the story as "King of the Lemurs".

Release/Reception/Box Office

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film received a 54% approval rating based on 191 reviews, with an average rating of 6.07/10. The consensus reads: "Though its story is problematic in spots and its humour is hit-or-miss for the adult crowd, Madagascar boasts impressive visuals and enough spunky charm to keep children entertained." On Metacritic, the film has a 57% approval rating based on 36 reviews falling under the "Mixed or Average" category.

Paul Arendt of BBC gave the film 4/5 stars, writing: "It's also a pleasure to see a cartoon so determinedly devoid of sentiment, a stance confirmed by the hilarious demise of an angelic little duckling. Highly recommended for kids and adults." Jeff Strickler of the Star Tribune gave the film 3/4 stars, describing it as a "good-natured kid flick" and writing: "This computer-animated comedy makes enough kowtows to adult humour that parents won't be bored, but it is clearly aimed at the peewee set." Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post described the film as "wildly fun" and wrote: "along with such recent classics as Shrek, Finding Nemo and The Incredibles, Madagascar will surely go on to take a deserved place on millions of families' video shelves as a reliable Saturday night staple." Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times described the film as "a good-humoured, pleasant confection that has all kinds of relaxed fun bringing computer-animated savvy to the old-fashioned world of Looney Tunes cartoons." Paul Clinton of CNN wrote that the film was "a delight", and added: "Co-writers and -directors McGrath and Eric Darnell, along with their entire team, have done a terrific job with their sweet and whimsical story."

Roger Ebert gave the film 2.5/4 stars, writing that it "is funny, especially at the beginning, and good-looking in a retro cartoon way", but added: "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." Philippa Hawker of The Sydney Morning Herald also gave the film 2.5/4 stars, writing: "Madagascar, despite some break-out moments of silliness, seems defined by a formula that can't fail to please, at a basic level, but never feels imaginatively inspired." Rick Groen of The Globe and Mail gave the film 2/4 stars, describing the film's script as "a wafer-thin yarn that might have done Sylvester and Tweety proud, but goes missing-in-action when stretched over 80-plus minutes." A. O. Scott of The New York Times wrote that the film "arouses no sense of wonder, except insofar as you wonder, as you watch it, how so much talent, technical skill and money could add up to so little."

The film was a commercial success. On its opening weekend, the film grossed $47,224,594 with a $11,431 average from 4,131 theaters making it the number 3 movie of that weekend behind Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith and The Longest Yard. However, the film managed to claim the top position in the U.S. box office the following week with a gross of $28,110,235. In the United States, the film eventually grossed $193,595,521, and in foreign areas grossed $362,964,045 with a summative worldwide gross of $556,559,566.

Budget $75 million

Box office $556.6 million

My Review

I am writing this review after having watched "Madagascar" for the third time. for the sake of the movie, this is a good thing since I really did not like it when I first viewed it, which was in the theaters. I am a big 'toon fan and like many other "toonheads" and movie reviewers, I felt that "Shrek" and "Ice Age" set the standard for adult cartoons that are as entertaining as they are side-splitting funny. It is no coincidence that these type of cartoons are intentionally designed to get more laughs from adults than kids.

Even though there are countless references to other cartoons, I feel that this deserves to be seen without looking through the prisms of other works. It really does not matter how Madagascar stacks up to Shrek anymore than trying to compare Brokeback Mountain to Cinderella Man. View it as if it were the only adult cartoon ever made.

I initially went into "Madagascar" thinking that I would be seeing another "Shrek," since that is how it was promoted and that is primarily the reason why I left the theatre feeling cheated. They say that some movies need to be seen more than once to be appreciated, and after watching this two more time on video, I can say, unequivocally, that this one gets better with each sitting.

At first, I did not like the voice characterizations for a few reasons. First of all, I do not like Ben Stiller at all, who does the voice of "Alex, the Lion". Secondly, I thought that giving the role of "Marty, the Zebra," to Chris Rock, was being blatantly derivative of "Donkey" in Shrek both from a character standpoint, and because, like Eddie Murphy, Rock was another black alumnus from "Saturday Night Live". Now, don't get me wrong: I think that Chris Rock is a great comic actor, although nowhere close to a seasoned Eddie Murphy, but he has one of the most grating voices in showbiz since Louie Anderson.

One the other hand, the choice of Jada Pinkett Smith to play Gloria, the "Hip-Hop", Hippo, and David Schwimmer to play Melman, the Narcoleptic Giraffe were casting gems.

All of the criticisms that I initially had about Madagascar faded away during the second. Upon final review, Madagascar is one, really funny cartoon that I recommend be seen more than once.

Madagascar is actually two stories in one about two sets of four animal friends that reside in New York's Central Park Zoo. The main story centres around the longings of Marty to be back in the wild and wide-open spaces of Africa rather than cooped up in a technologically-controlled synthetic jungle "environment." His best friend, Alex, is a ham at heart who loves to be the centre of human attention at the daily zoo shows. Gloria is the stabilizing force between these two opposites and frequently acts as mediator between them. Melman seems perfectly happy just to have a life that has some constancy.

As you have read in other reviews, the four wind up getting accidentally shipped (dumped) to Madagascar where they meet the wackiest bunch of lemurs you will ever see.

The second group of animal friends in the movie are four commando-like penguins who are more intent on getting out of the Big Apple, and do so by breaking out of the zoo, commandeering a huge cargo ship, and hijacking it to Antarctica! The penguins are a needed comic-relief to a few, overly serious moments in Madagascar.

Like Shrek 2, there are plenty of inside jokes and send-ups of other films (such as Planet of the Apes, American Beauty, and From Here to Eternity). More funny, however, are the more subtle gags which I will not reveal here lest they lose their desired impact.

What makes Madagascar work, in the final analysis, is that it stays true to its storyline, and never forgets the importance of friendship in all relationships. 8.6/10

{*When you throw a party but nobody comes, and your left dancing on your own*}