Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa

Year: 2008
Director: Eric Darnell & Tom McGrath
Voice cast: Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, Jada Pinkett Smith, Sacha Baron Cohen, Cedric The Entertainer, Bernie Mac, Alec Baldwin

Three years ago, Dreamworks came up with a hilarious tale of four zoo animals from New York who end up in Madagascar through a series of unfortunate events. Now we have a sequel, where Alex the lion (Stiller), Marty the zebra (Rock), Melman the giraffe (Schwimmer) and Gloria the hippo (Smith), and the penguins who escaped with them, and the lemur King Julien (Cohen) and his assistant Maurice (Cedric), attempt to fly back to New York using an old rickety plane the penguins reengineered.

Problem is, the plane crashes in the African wilderness, and the four animals realise that they're back home, to their roots. Alex reunites with his parents, Melman becomes a witch doctor amongst his herd, Marty rejoins his fellow zebras, who happen to be exactly like him in every way, and Gloria meets a studly male hippo to possibly mate with.

But all is not well. Alex's father, Zuba (Bernie Mac, in his last voiceover role), king of the lions, faces threats from his rival Makunga (Baldwin). Makunga uses Alex to help him take the throne unfairly. Melman realises he's in love with Gloria and struggles to reveal his true feelings for her. Meanwhile, the old lady who beat Alex senseless in the first film is back, and inadvertently causes trouble for all the animals in the reserve.

As far as cartoons go, this one isn't half bad. Every cast member is back in their roles, there are a whole new assortment of characters, a new playground and a few villains to spice things up. In other words, business as usual. But I can't help but feel that the film suffers from having too much of some things, and not enough of some other things. It has too many subplots, and some were not fully explored or resolved too easily. And you know what they have too little of? The penguins. They are undoubtedly the funniest bunch in the film, and this time they play a lesser role, much to my chagrin. But they still bring out the laughs every time they're on screen.

And there are some other things that are over the top, like Alex getting into a fistfight with the old lady, or the idea of a giraffe liking a hippo (and he never had these feelings in the first film, but now says he always did), or a shark travelling on land. But I do like how all the subplots come together in the end for a nice finish.

Fun, but not as good as the first. Now sing with me: I like to move it move it.....(3.5/5)