Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008)

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008)

5/10

Starring the voices of

Ben Stiller

Chris Rock

David Schwimmer

Jada Pinkett Smith

Directed by Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath

Madagascar 2 for me was the damper in the entire franchise.  Although the animation was just as good as the previous movie, the story was just a little too thin for me. Unlike the first movie when you had no clue how things were going to end, other than somehow these dudes will end up in Madagascar. In this second part, things were a lot easier to guess, you can somewhat be filling the dots as the movie goes.

The plot starts with a brief into the life of Alex when he was a cub, we see how he used to live free in the jungle with his parents before he was captured by hunters and wound up in the New York zoo. Where Alex, from the first movie has dubbed himself, (well the zoon tagged him) the King of New York and believes he is a celebrity.

The film then takes us back to where we were in the end of the first movie, the four friends living now in Madagascar.

The movie was released three years after the first, due to that being a financial success. The production recalled the voice cast to reprise their roles as they walk us (or talk us through this animation). Then there was the introduction of more characters as this movie evolves. There was also an introduction of a love link between two of the four friends, Gloria and one other.

So, after knowing Alex’s beginning (and guessing that this sequel is about his life/family) we see the crew try to get out of Madagascar and get back to New York.

They board a plane which was stitched together by the Penguins and the chimps Mason and Phil who secured the help of other chimps, to steal the parts needed to help stitch the plane together. The Penguins were the pilots and as you would expect from a plane flown by penguins, it crashes and landed not too much after take-off. The crew were still in Africa.

Where they now are, the four met with others of the same specie as them.

With Alex getting reunited with his parents and the movie is much about how Alex gets to bond with his parents and how the four tries to save the small animal gathering the found themselves. With Melman trying to do the saving in the most ludicrous way.

The next movie after this was much more interesting and funnier than this. Which would have been instrumental to a forth film, if not of the purchase and mergers involved in the studio involved in its production.