In the old days, back before silicon forever changed the face of animated features, the genre was dominated by hand-drawn offerings from Disney. Sure, they had their ups and downs and there were other studios releasing similar offerings, but the Mouse House was truly the king of the animated jungle.
How appropriate then that Disney was the first studio to sign up computer upstart Pixar (although that relationship is currently tenuous at best). Like its traditional predecessors, Pixar is in a class all by itself, with everyone else and all of their offerings (save for the "Shrek" films) falling in line somewhere behind them.
Such is the case and place with "Madagascar," a mediocre if lively offering from DreamWorks' animation division and directors Eric Darnell ("Antz") and Tom McGrath (TV's "The Ren & Stimpy Show"). As penned by them and Mark Burton (making his feature debut) & Billy Frolick ("It is What it Is"), the film has a decent concept. What if a bunch of urban zoo animals get tired of their trappings and decide to set off for the wild, but end up on the island of Madagascar where -- to reference another animated flick featuring lions -- the circle of life (mainly referring to the food chain) is in full swing?
Like most other entries of its ilk, there's plenty of material aimed at kids and adults alike. For every reference to poop jokes, kicks to the crotch and other slapstick material, there are ones for "Saturday Night Fever," an old "Twilight Zone" episode and obviously "Cast Away." Unlike what usually occurs in the Pixar offerings, however, such efforts here are much like the same in "Shark Tale" where they're a bit too obvious and feel like standalone jokes rather than as integrated parts of the story.
It's not a horrible flaw, and some of the material is funny if not cute, but it does knock down the overall quality a notch or two. The film also shares a problem with that other DreamWorks flick in that those who serve as the vocal talent are too easy to identify and thus end up turning their characters into animated versions of themselves, rather than becoming those characters.
One simply can't shake that feeling when hearing the likes of Ben Stiller ("Meet the Fockers," "Dodgeball"), Chris Rock ("The Longest Yard," "Head of State") and David Schwimmer ("Six Days, Seven Night," TV's "Friends"), although the other major character -- voiced by Jada Pinkett Smith ("Collateral," "Ali") -- thankfully doesn't share that identification dilemma (as her voice isn't as recognizable and she doesn't use the same inflections, etc. in most of her work like her costars do).
As occasionally occurs in such films, the supporting characters are more interesting and/or entertaining than the main ones. While the aforementioned stars get the lion's share of the material, King Julian of the Lemurs -- voiced by Sacha Baron Cohen a.k.a. Ali G -- is a fun if odd and strangely voiced creation, while a pack of penguins -- desirous of hijacking a cargo ship and sailing for Antarctica -- get and deliver the film's best moments.
And that's mainly because the story ends up being limited in both scope and execution. From the zoo to the sea and then to the titular island, the plot provides the skeleton upon which to hang the various jokes and gags, most of which are amusing rather than hilarious. Speaking of certainly not being the latter, there's also the existential element of one friend dealing with wanting to eat another when his zoo food is no longer available. But there really isn't a great deal more than that, especially once the group ends up on Madagascar.
Probably the most disappointing element - in terms of the computer-generated animation arms race of achieving photorealism -- is the film's visuals. Rather than the smooth look of "Finding Nemo" or the lush appearance of the "Shrek" films, the characters here look somewhat blocky (akin to, but clearly not as bad as the short running TV show "Father of the Pride") and the backgrounds don't appear as rich or detailed.
Either the filmmakers didn't have the budget of those other films and thus lacked the horsepower to render the fine details, or they purposefully made it look the way it does in something of a retro fashion. Of course, only they know the real story, but the end result is a product that may be brightly colored and quite active, but simply don't match up favorably to its predecessors (such as the similarly retro "The Incredibles").
And that certainly applies to the overall film. While its frantic onscreen action and plethora of cultural jokes certainly prevent it from being a chore to sit through, others have raised the bar so high -- in terms of visuals, story and characters -- that offerings like this simply can't help but feel like secondhand lions housed off the beaten path in less than state of the art zoo displays. "Madagascar" rates as a 5 out of 10.
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