Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa is a really fun children’s film, but for those of us who grew up with The Lion King, the obvious comparisons between the two make this movie come up seriously lacking.
Madagascar 2 picks up where the first ends, with Alex (the lion), Marty (the zebra), Melman (the giraffe), and Gloria (the hippo) getting ready to take their bon voyage form Madagascar. The problem is, they are taking off in some rink-a-dink plane that has no hope of making it back to New York. Sure enough, the plane falls from the sky, deserting the animals in Africa.
Something that Madagascar 2 does right is keeping what made the first one special. The animation style, though not my favorite, still fits well with the world that it is creating, the personification of the animals adds for some great moments (especially Melman’s psychological issues), etc. However, the best parts of this film, by far, involve the penguins and lemurs, which supply most of the humor where it falls short elsewhere. It’s no wonder they got their own show.
However, what starts out as a strong film, especially when considering everything involved in the plane portion, quickly begins to wane. Additionally, when the film fails to meet the standards set by a lemur being startled by a shark, then clearly it’s not trying hard enough. The problem is, the callbacks to the previous film in this sequel become a crutch later in the film. The biggest example of this is the grandma that hits Alex with her purse in the first film, who comes back in full force this time around. What could have been a humorous, one time cameo becomes a go to, and eventually a nuisance. On a similar note, when the Madagascar 2 isn’t stealing from its own history, then it is stealing from other movies. As I said before, a lot of it references The Lion King, from the singing birds and exiled son, to the evil, scarred uncle that leads to a drought. And the problem with this is that there comes a point where a film moves past an homage and becomes a blatant copy of many elements from another movie.
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa is sure to please the children in the audience, but for the rest of us, it’s best to go back to the classics. And I have to say it: the cross species relationship between Melman and Gloria is just gross.
Final Grade: B-
No comments:
Post a Comment