Madagscar 2

Madagscar, the first one, gets a 70 percent approval rating from more than 10,000 LOVEFiLM members. Far be it from me to disagree. It had a snappy, original concept – semi-domesticated Central Park zoo animals are marooned in the wild – a bright, glossy look, and more fun characters than it knew what to do with.

This being a Dreamworks Animation production, the sequel was inevitable. The challenge for screenwriter Etan Cohen, therefore, was to come up with a decent excuse to freshen up the fish out of water theme and not louse up a winning formula.

He just about pulls it off, but not without breaking a sweat. “Ecape 2 Africa” is funny-ish and relatively fast-moving, but “fresh” would be pushing it. It’s a mark of some desperation that Cohen feels the need to construct a prologue that would more rightly belong in front of the first film: meet Alex as a cub in the savannah, rudely snagged by game hunters and shipped off to New York and separated from his parents. Folks, this information will come in useful later. Now, back to Madagascar, where we left our furry friends three years ago, erroneously imagining they were on their way home.

The penguins have a plan. Better than that, they have a plane. Trouble is, as everyone knows, penguins can’t fly. So while they get off the island, they’re shortly crash-landing in West Africa. Which happily restores Alex (Ben Stiller) to his family and his blanky.

At first it’s all smiles. The zebra, Marty (Chris Rock) is tickled to find his place in the herd. The hippo, Gloria (Jada Pinkett Smith) is happy as a pig in, uh, mud, to find a watering hole where she can really stretch, especially when she gets a load of Moto Moto (Will. I.Am) and his fabulous flab. The giraffe, Melman (David Schwimmer), being a prize hypochondriac, inherits a job as a doctor. Apparently ethnic typing is okay in Toon town.

It can’t last and it doesn’t. Duped by a schemer who obviously thought Scar was the hero of The Lion King, Alex is humiliated and exiled from the pride. He offends Marty because he can’t tell one zebra from another. Meanwhile Melman is sick with jealousy because he’s in love with Gloria. And then the water hole runs dry…

Phew! Too much information – and that’s the problem with Cohen’s script, which juggles at least half a dozen characters, each with his or her own dilemma, but borrows rather too much from other, better movies in the process.

Do we really care if Alex can earn the respect of his old man and get his pride back with a Happy Feet routine? I think not. Is there a suspicion of déjà vu in the makeshift WWII bombing raid that constitutes a climax? If you’ve seen Chicken Run, the answer has to be yes. Even Sacha Baron Cohen’s scene-stealing lemur King Julien – a character obviously inspired by Peter Sellers and The Goons – is not quite such fun second time around.

On the other hand, those penguins are still a riot – not coincidentally, they’re voiced by the two directors, Tom McGrath and Chris Miller. More of the monkeys would have been nice too – in fact, if there’s another sequel (may I suggest “Madagascar: Born Three”?) it might not be a bad idea to ditch whiny Alex and co and give the lion’s share to the birds.

Tom Charity
tom.charity@lovefilm.com

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