Madagascar
It's always tempting, when visiting a zoo, to feel sorry for all the animals locked up in their cages. They should surely be out in the wild, roaming the vast African plains, wandering through lush jungles, or diving into crystal-clear waters in search of fresh fish – not cooped up in tiny enclosures, being fed meat they haven't hunted themselves or chewing on dried hay rather than sweet green grass.
The film Free Willy only emphasised this tendency. The mighty beast befriended a small boy before that ridiculously cheesy yet strangely satisfying moment where he leapt the enclosure wall to freedom.
Of course, what that movie didn't show was what happened to the real whale when it was released into the wild. After a few weeks of acclimatisation, the effectively tame orca disappeared off for a few days to try to catch some fish on its own. Failing dismally, she soon came skulking back to her erstwhile captors in search of a spot of lunch. In fact, she never managed to hack it in the real world.
For most zoo animals the same would be true – captivity has bred complacency, and they can never survive on their own.Here, a bunch of cocky zoo creatures – principally Alex the Lion, Marty the Zebra, Melman the Giraffe and Gloria the Hippo, voiced by Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer and Jada Pinkett Smith respectively – decide they fancy seeing life beyond their cages.
Charging through the city in which their zoo is based they have a stupendous time. But it's not much fun when they find themselves deported, shipwrecked and washed up on the shores of Africa – well, Madagascar to be precise. Trying to get by, not only in the world in which they were meant to live, but also with its inhabitants, proves a little tricky.
This latest computer-animated kids' flick from Dreamworks has some great concepts and a decent cast. But coming as it does hot on the heels of their rather disappointing Shark Tale, which also had a good concept but benefited from a truly great cast, many may be a bit wary.
Surely there are only so many wacky talking animal flicks these people can get away with. If they couldn't get an underwater gangster movie with Will Smith, Angelina Jolie, Jack Black and Robert De Niro to work, can they fare better with a cast that includes the guy responsible for Ali-G?
Film Facts
Release: 15th JulyCertificate: U
The films saviour comes in the form of penguins. Penguins are brilliantly silly creatures anyway, but turn them into devious masterminds who work like a S.W.A.T. team to organise a series of escapes from captivity, and you're on to a real winner.
These silly creatures don't quite manage to lift the film to the level of the likes of a Shrek or a Toy Story, but the penguins alone will at least ensure that your time at the cinema isn't a total waste. Not a great movie, but not a bad one either. But then, it is for kids.