Dreamworks List - Top Tier - #24: Madagascar

24. Madagascar

This movie is fun.

It’s just a really fun movie… with a really creative premise when you actually sit and think about it. As a kid, I definitely did not appreciate the creativity and intrigue behind the premise of this film. I remember being excited to see it and leaving it a little let down because I think I wanted something a little more out of it. Maybe I wasn’t entirely prepared for it to go so hard into the comedy as it did or I was just hankering for a big, cool, final boss or something. I must have liked it though because we ended up getting the DVD for it and watched it often. I loved playing around with DVDs as a kid. It was so much fun and the time afforded to me to even be able to do that just doesn’t exist anymore.

Living and breathing in the atmosphere of this film is still really fun to do. I love the lighting of New York at sunset and at night. The areas they visit, whether it be the city or the big sandy beaches of Madagascar, make me wonder what it would be like to be there myself. The movie oozes style too. As in, it bothers to have a style. It’s very angular and it takes advantage of the fact that it’s a cartoon by making everyone have extremely fast and swift movements. It’s the kind of film that has so much to look at and so much going on in the background that it’s hard not to appreciate the work that must have gone into making it such a fun time.

And while it is a fun time and mostly trying to make you laugh, the underlying darkness to the plot did end up giving me a bit to chew on even as a kid. Alex the Lion (Ben Stiller), Marty the Zebra (Chris Rock), Gloria the Hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith), and Melman the Giraffe (David Schwimmer) end up getting transferred to a wildlife preserve in Africa after Marty goes out on his own in New York City and his friends follow him to get him back. That doesn’t end up happening as the Penguins (Skipper, Kawalski, Rico, and Private) end up hijacking the boat and turning it around, not realizing that the crates of the other four were unbuckled due to them bickering at the time of this operation.

They fall into the ocean and wash up on Madagascar. It’s a dream come true for Marty as he’s always dreamed about living in the wild. Gloria is just trying to keep everyone civil and Melman just wants his meds. However, Alex is the one most put off by this. He loved his life in New York and was the top attraction at the zoo. He had all the merch and all the fans and here he’s got nothing.

Things really kick off when the original King Julian (Sasha Baron Cohen) and his subordinates Mauice (Cedric the Entertainer) and Mort (Andy Richter) come on the scene with their band of lemurs to recruit Alex and the rest of the freaks to protect them from the Foosa. They’re animals that disrupt their parties and rip their limbs off.

Maurice doesn’t actually want to go through with the plan though because he realizes what Alex is. See, the thing about our main four is that only one of them is a natural born predator. Alex is a lion and he was regularly fed steak at the zoo… which, in the movie’s terms, means his friends and all the other lemurs on the island.

What actually was in those steaks he was fed is… dark to think about but it doesn’t actually matter because the point is that Alex literally can not eat unless it’s one of his friends. Or so his body and mind are telling him.

The longer he stays on Madagascar without eating and away from civilization the more his inner lion awakens until it all comes to a head when he tries to fucking eat Marty and the others.

We’ve seen cartoon talking animal movies before but this film, having come out in 2005, was probably one of the first to actually take the idea of one of our cartoonish characters and recognize that one of them was a carnivore and really zone in on that for the premise. It becomes less about trying to get off the island and more about self-actualization. Not just for Alex but for Marty as well. They both reconcile and realize that what they need in the end is to just be there for each other and it’s done in such a legitimately gripping and tense manner.

The process towards Alex going feral is done REALLY well. It’s not rushed at all. Hints are sprinkled in here and there but it’s always peppered with him colliding with his original personality too. When he’s putting on a show and getting excited while Marty is recreating his act at the zoo, his pupils are dilated and his hair is wild because he’s feeling a different kind of excitement within. Then the music just gets crazier and wilder as Alex starts to literally envision everyone as steaks and then… he attacks. Then it gets quiet.

Then it ramps up again. It’s really well done.

The thing about this film that I do also appreciate now more than I did back then was just the confidence it has in its characters. It has a lot of them and they all don’t really NEED to be super fleshed out and given their own character arcs because their personalities are so well defined on their own. The story is about Alex and Marty and the rest are there to entertain in their own ways. Julian is crazy and he pairs well with the more down to Earth Maurice and the extremely weird Mort. The chimps have this charming duo act going on that’s probably reminiscent of an old timey performance act. The Penguins are wonderful with their secret agent motif going on; a definite fan favorite that saw them getting their own TV series and a film.

Plus, the film is mostly a comedy which lends itself towards that being something they can just do. They can just have funny characters with interesting personalities and have them just BE funny while the story happens. It also helps that even though the story isn’t about the rest of them, they all have a part to play in it. The plot is both kicked off and resolved by the Penguins despite their story being off to the side and them not really having much development except realizing that Antarctica sucks.

Yeah, it’s just a really solid comedy film with an interesting premise. That can only take it so far of course but it’s fun for those who want to have fun. It’s also absurd in all the right ways whereas something like Shark Tale wasn’t. Enjoy yourselves.