Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa

Synopsis

The wild zoo animals from 2005’s Madagascar find themselves right in the middle of the African wild after a failed flight attempt, which leaves Alex the lion (voiced by Ben Stiller) and his friends stranded. Poor Alex finds he has little in common with the local animals because he lived so long in the city zoo being pampered and titled “The King of New York.” His friends, voices of Jada Pinkett -Smith, Chris Rock and David Schwimmer all doubt they’ll ever make it back home safe to the zoo.

Review

Madagascar 2 had me rolling. It has great dancing, music and bright vibrant colors that you can get down with. Shoot, I sometimes forgot that they’re animals. The actors’ voices fit the animals perfectly. I wonder how they animate the animals to dance with such rhythm and musicality. Some regular humans can’t even get down like that. All I know is my theater was filled with little kids. For the most part they were all good. There were a couple cranky spoiled ones screaming, “I want my own popcorn.” Greedy things. Anyhoo, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa is just as good as the first one. It’s a cute funny flick for a Saturday afternoon.

Madagascar is about Alex the lion (Ben Stiller, Tropic Thunder) Marty the Zebra (Chris Rock, I Think I Love My Wife) Gloria the hippo (Jada Pinkett-Smith, The Women) Melman the Giraffe (David Schwimmer, Friends) and the crowd favorite penguins crew getting stranded in the African wild after a crash landing a plane constructed by the ingenious little penguins to get them out of Madagascar and on their way home. I’m still not quite sure why it’s called Escape 2 Africa. They were trying to escape to New York. Regardless, their unexpected stop opens the friends’ eyes to a new world of their own species they’ve never seen before. It’s kind of funny, but the experience seems a lot like what people who have gone to Africa experience when they visit “the motherland”. People always make Africa sound so nice...well if I ever go I want to have a REALLY good tourist map. You can get into trouble in Jamaica, so I assume going off the beaten path in Africa would be a little more hazardous!"

Gloria loves herself some hippos and definitely beefy Moto Moto (will.i.am, Black Eyed Peas). The studly hippo likes his female hippos “CHUNKY” and Gloria is big and round and little Jada has that strong big voice that fits perfectly as a hippo. She cracks me up with the facial expressions they give her like the raising of an eyebrow to say, “Mmmm hmmm.” Anyhoo, I’m sure there are lots of women who want themselves a Moto Moto too who likes his women round and chunkaaay. Like I said this movie is all about great actors creating believable personalities in these characters, and we get to see how they make it through this adventure.

I’m not quite sure which one I like better, the first or second film. I guess they’re equal. The first one was new and fresh to us. We’re introduced to these great new characters with bold personalities. I think that both movies compliment each other. This film also gives us new characters such as Makunga the lion voiced by Alec Baldwin (NBC’s 30 Rock). Why does Alec look like Makunga? Oh, this is funny. He sure does. You have to see the movie to know what I’m talking about.

Another new character brought into the circle is Zuba the alpha lion voiced by our beloved, the late Bernie Mac. Ahhhhh Bernie. I have to take a moment here. Thanks. Bernie as always adds a nice flavor to the movie and just knowing this is his last along with Soul Men makes me a little sad. However, when I think about the penguins in the film, I can’t help but cheer up and smile again. Those little dudes are FUNNY!

Madagascar is a comical, colorful, cute and fun film for kids and adults, who will be amused too when they take the family. I don’t even have kids and I enjoyed it.

My Rating ~ 4 Reels

Audience Rating (What's Yours?)