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Madagascar [2005]
![Madagascar [2005]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61Z6PH6W5VL._SL160_.jpg)
RRP: £19.99
Our Price: £5.29 (subject to change)
Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review
The penguins steal the show. In the sprightly Madagascar, a mid-life crisis inspires Marty the Zebra (voiced by Chris Rock) to escape from his lifelong home, a New York zoo. His equally pampered friends--Alex the Lion (Ben Stiller), Gloria the Hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith), and Melman the Giraffe (David Schwimmer)--then escape to bring him back. Unfortunately, their attempt at damage control persuades zoo officials that the animals are unhappy, so all four get shipped to an animal preserve in Kenya...only a squad of maniacal penguins change the destination to Antarctica. The quartet end up on an island where, in addition to meeting some hedonistic lemurs, they learn about the food chain--and that Alex is a different link on the chain from the other three. Madagascar doesn't achieve the snappy perfection of a Pixar movie, but it tops most other computer-animated efforts; the collision of friendship and predator instincts makes for an unusually gripping conflict. The vocal performances of the central characters is serviceable, but Sacha Baron Cohen (Ali G) provides topnotch lunacy as the lemur king, and the penguins--voiced mostly by the animators themselves--are the best thing in the movie. --Bret Fetzer, Amazon.com
Editorial
Synopsis
The friendship between a New York City lion and zebra is tested when fate brings them out to the unforgiving wilderness in this computer-animated feature. Chris Rock does the voice of Marty the Zebra, whose longing to explore beyond his cushy Central Park Zoo boundaries is the impetus that ultimately strands him and his pals on the shores of savage Madagascar. Marty loves the new, edible scenery, but his best friend Alex (voiced by Ben Stiller) the Lion begins to starve since his diet of thick steaks has been cut off, and the rump of his friend starts to look mighty tasty. Their other friends, a hypochondriac giraffe (David Schwimmer) and a sassy hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith), try their best to think of a solution as the call of the wild slowly turns the starving Alex into Marty's worst nightmare. Meanwhile the hilariously self aggrandising King of the Ocelots (Sacha Cohen) has a plan to use Marty to repel their own carnivore problem. This kid-oriented comedy stays adult-friendly every step of the way thanks to a clever script that mixes New Yorker humour and even some existentialism in with the pratfalls and spit-takes. Jolts of comedic brilliance are supplied by some Arctic-bound escaped con penguins, and a couple of literary apes. It's not a musical, but classic songs from the likes of Louis Armstrong and Sammy Davis Jr. keep the montages flowing loose and sassy.
this review is amusing
Review date: 2008-08-31 Rating: 6 out of 10
but not as amusing at Sacha Baron Cohen's failure to maintain an accent for more than one sentence. He keeps slipping unintentionally between Arab, Asian, Indian, Pakistani, Greek inflections. Suddenly 'Miss Gorightry' doesn't sound so bad.
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Reviews
exc film!
Review date: 2008-08-20 Rating: 8 out of 10
im not a big fan of animated films but i have to admit this one was brill. cant wait for nxt one!
Fun character driven film
Review date: 2008-08-17 Rating: 8 out of 10
In this 2005 DreamWorks animation, a group of animals are left alone on the island of Madagascar after a mishap involving Marty the zebra trying to escape.
Having seen trailers and read reviews, I must be honest and say that I wasn't expecting much more than a good natured fun family film, which it was, but a still enjoyable and funny one with good natured ideologies about friendship and loyalty and a good sense of humour to make it a fun watch.
With an A list cast of voices including Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, Sacha Baron Cohen and Jaden Pinkett Smith, the film had created a good hype coming to it's release a couple of years ago, and now the success was expected and a sequel is currently a couple of weeks away, and with the same cast, it will hopefully be as good as the first.
The whole concept of a lion, a zebra, a giraffe and a hippo all being best friends is great to even start, and then we see Alex the Lion dancing and showing off for the crowd and the film starts to live up to the expected family fun genre and we are served heavy doses of slapstick comedy and many humorous references to other films, including Cast Away and American Beauty.
The plot is well written with humour and drama encoded in just the right way. However the whole ideology of going away from the zoo could have been developed better and when on the island, the use of the surroundings could have been used for extra comedy as the humour fades away towards the end, which is quite a big anticlimax and seems very rushed.
Nonetheless the humour is there, and is driven by the different personalities of the animals. The egotistical lion, the open-minded zebra, the luckless giraffe and the stubborn hippo all collide and drive the film forward.
The visual effects are good, though I personally never take them into account to make a film and with the plot and characters, make an enjoyable film with good natured ideologies.
7.5/10
Mada-GAS-car
Review date: 2008-03-26 Rating: 4 out of 10
So to begin with, you get the impression that you are going to get a done-okay-kid's-movie. Which you do...for 30 seconds, then the film hits rock bottom: some crazy animals running around in some cramped enclosure saying stupid things.
Stupid one-liners.
That's all you get for comedy except for some lemurs, which helped this film get two stars, not one.
Okay, to describe the first scene: there are sweeping camera moves, quite nice music and overall a good introduction. Then the second scene kicks in, a zebra on a running machine staring at a wall with the wild painted on it. He suddenly decides to go live in a jungle and runs away from the zoo. He arrives at a deserted (why is it deserted??????????????????) Grand Central Station and is about to board the slowing train-why the conductor was about to let a zebra on a train is anyone's guess-when his friends, Alex, Melman and Gloria turn up. They tell him not to go and they head back inside. For some reason there are people inside the station now and this scene ends up with the lion being tranquilized. I have no idea what happened for the ten minutes after that so now to move on to the scene in which the boxes they are shut inside, burst open on the shores of Madagascar. The odd thing about this is, why would anybody tranquilize some animals, stuff them in crates, put them on a cargo ship and then throw them off the boat and turn around as soon as they reached a tiny island off the coast of Africa?
Anyway, the not-necessarilly-unlikable-yet-still-hackneyed-characters wander round the island for a while until they meet some lemurs. Since I at least liked the lemurs, you may expect thing to pick up a little. Do you want me to let you into a little secret though? So did I. But unfortunately, this film couldn't be saved by this point, not even by talking lemurs...
So, overall, this film is not really worth your while: it's repetitive, unoriginal, hackneyed...the list is endless. Don't buy this.
Good Clean Fun
Review date: 2007-11-13 Rating: 10 out of 10
Most animated films these days all seem to be clones of each other. Films with penguins and squirrels tend to blend into one after a while.
Thankfully this is one of the better efforts of the Dreamworks studio, and from the perspective of a parent, this is in the section marked "perfect for little kids". There's enough in it to amuse the parents, enough splats and crashes to amuse the kids. Everyone is happy in the end, no one dies etc.
Also, at the time of writing this DVD is less than a fiver, which is a bargain frankly.
Product Details/Specifications
Actor(s):
Ben Stiller
Chris Rock
David Schwimmer
Creators:
Ben Stiller (Primary Contributor)
David Schwimmer (Primary Contributor)
Director(s):
Recording label: Paramount Home Entertainment
Manufacturer: Paramount Home Entertainment
EAN: 5051189121630
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: Anamorphic, Animated, PAL, Widescreen,
Release date: 2006-06-19
Number of discs: 1
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Audience rating: Universal, suitable for all
Region code: 2
Running time: 82 minutes
Theatrical release date: 2005-05-27
Language: English (Original Language)
Language: German (Original Language)
Language: Spanish (Published)