Madagascar 2 was,
for me, the damper in the entire franchise. Although the animation was just as
good as the previous movie, the story felt a little too thin. Unlike the first
movie, where you had no clue how things would end (other than somehow these
guys would end up in Madagascar), this second part was much easier to predict.
You could pretty much connect the dots as the movie went along.
The plot starts
with a brief look into Alex’s life as a cub. We see how he used to live freely
in the jungle with his parents before being captured by hunters and winding up
in the New York Zoo. There, Alex—dubbed (or rather, tagged by the zoo) the
“King of New York”—believes he’s a celebrity.
The film then
takes us back to where we left off at the end of the first movie: the four
friends now living in Madagascar.
The movie was released three years after the first, thanks to its financial
success. The production brought back the voice cast to reprise their roles as
they guide us (or talk us) through this animated adventure. There’s also the
introduction of more characters as the story evolves, including a love
connection between two of the four friends, Gloria and another.
After learning
about Alex’s beginnings (and guessing that this sequel is about his life and
family), we see the crew try to leave Madagascar and return to New York.
They board a plane stitched together by the Penguins and the chimps, Mason and
Phil, who enlisted the help of other chimps to steal the parts needed to build
it. The Penguins take the pilot’s seat, and as you’d expect from a plane flown
by penguins, it crashes shortly after takeoff. The crew ends up still in
Africa.
Where they land,
the four meet others of their own species.
Alex is reunited with his parents, and much of the movie focuses on how he
bonds with them and how the group tries to save the small animal community
they’ve found themselves in. Meanwhile, Melman attempts to save the day in the
most ludicrous way possible.
The next movie after this one was much more interesting and funnier than Madagascar 2. It would have set the stage for a fourth film, if not for the studio’s purchase and mergers affecting its production, but you never know when it comes to Hollywood.
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