Filipe Neto This film tells the story of a group of animals from the Central Park Zoo that arranges a way to be returned to Africa. They are Alex, the lion (zoo's main attraction), Gloria, a hippopotamus, Melman, a hypochondriac giraffe and Marty, a zebra who, by the way, was the only one truly anxious to return to Africa. Who takes advantage of this is a pair of monkeys and a group of penguins with navy seals ticks. In Africa, they end up repenting and try to return to civilization, relying on the help of a joyful tribe of lemurs led by eccentric King Julian. The film is a lot of fun and some scenes are worthy of anthology, like the dance of King Julian, the main (the only) musical moment of the film. The voice cast have some well-known actors like Ben Stiller, Sacha Baron Cohen or Chris Rock, and they did their work very well. Unfortunately, although the film is good and very funny and the majority of the characters were well imagined, the secondary characters are funnier than the main characters, and everything they do ends up having more interest than the four central animals. This is serious and shows that the main characters have been poorly developed.

classicsoncall Hard to believe this is a decade old already, as old as Marty the Zebra was at the time (he would now be twenty), and I'm just getting around to it. Well I'm late to the party on a lot of things. I thought this was a fun flick and have finally learned the origin of my granddaughter's favorite schtick when she starts in with 'I like to move it, move it...'. With a nod to my favorite TV show of all time, The Twilight Zone, the picture had me with it's reference 'To Serve Lemur'. All you need to know is that it was a cook book. I probably got the biggest kick out of those goofy penguins, I guess I'll have to look up their movie next. As for this one, I thought it was crackalacking.

Evan Ortiz I watched this film with my sister as a part of our Dreamworks Movie Marathon. This is a very middle-of-the road film. It wasn't very funny, it wasn't very engaging, and the characters weren't too interesting. Some laughs here and there, though they were few and far between. The Penguins were more interesting than the main characters. Two things I enjoyed were the art style and the main conflict of the film. The animation felt very angular, which isn't a complaint. The character designs, when paired with the choice of soundtrack (popular songs from the 80s and Louis Armstrong's Wonderful World) gave the movie a character. I also appreciated how the main conflict was between Alex and Marty, and how they maintained their friendship in the midst of change and savagery. Not having a "bad guy" in the movie was a great choice. That all being said, this movie is passable at best.

SnoopyStyle Lion Alex (Ben Stiller), Zebra Marty (Chris Rock), Giraffe Melman (David Schwimmer), and Hippo Gloria (Jada Pinkett Smith) are best friends and stars at New York's Central Park Zoo. When Marty escapes, the gang goes after him. Once they're captured, they find themselves being transfered to Kenya Wildlife Preserve. Only the Penguins muck everything up, and the group is stranded in the wilds of Madagascar.This is a fun group of characters. It works great for a while. However it goes to an uncomfortable place with Alex being hungry and his friends looking more like food. It's a very dark storyline for a kid's movie. It doesn't fit. It needs to find its happy place.