Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa runs 89 minutes and never once sits still. That is both its method and its limit. The second film in the Madagascar series, following the 2005 original, was directed by Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath from a script they wrote with Etan Cohen. It moves its Central Park Zoo animals from the island of the first film to the East African savannas, where most of them meet others of their own kind for the first time. The premise is strong. The follow-through is uneven, and the film’s best ideas and its loudest ones are often the same ideas.
Trailer, via Universal Kids.
A Crate, a Poacher, and a Lion Named Alakay
The film opens in Kenya, where the alpha lion Zuba tries to teach his young son Alakay how to fight. Alakay would rather dance. That single gag — a lion cub who prefers rhythm to combat — sets up the whole engine of the movie.
Rival lion Makunga challenges Zuba for the title of alpha. During their fight, poachers grab Alakay and put him in a crate. Zuba chases them and breaks the safety harness off the crate, but he is shot in the ear and left incapacitated. The crate falls into the ocean, drifts to New York City, and the cub grows up at the Central Park Zoo as Alex.
That is the origin story the first film never bothered to give him. It is the most efficient stretch of Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, and it earns the reunion that follows.
The Plane the Penguins Built
In the present day, the animals prepare to fly home to New York aboard a battered airplane piloted by the penguins, with King Julien, Maurice and Mort along for the ride. The plane runs out of fuel and crash lands in continental Africa.
The animals end up at a watering hole on a nature reserve. Alex is reunited with his parents and impresses them with tales of his status as “the king of New York.” Marty finds a herd of zebras who look and sound exactly like him. Melman, a hypochondriac, panics because the reserve has no doctors, so the other giraffes make him their witch doctor. Gloria draws the attention of the smooth-talking hippo Moto Moto.
Meanwhile the penguins — Skipper, Kowalski, Rico and Private — set about rebuilding the plane with help from chimpanzees recruited by Mason and Phil. They steal vehicles from humans on a safari and strip them for parts.
“Still together, still lost.”
That tagline is doing more work than most of the script. The animals are, in fact, still together and still lost, and the film knows it.
What the New Cast Brings
Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, Jada Pinkett Smith, Sacha Baron Cohen, Cedric the Entertainer and Andy Richter all return from the 2005 film. The additions are Bernie Mac as Zuba, Alec Baldwin as Makunga, Sherri Shepherd as Mom and will.i.am as Moto Moto.
Baldwin’s Makunga is the sharpest of the new arrivals. He is a schemer with a grievance, and the film gives him just enough room to be genuinely unpleasant rather than merely silly. Mac’s Zuba is warmer and sadder than the part requires, which matters, because the film was dedicated to Mac, who died before its release.
will.i.am does double duty. He voices Moto Moto and contributed five songs to the soundtrack. The film, like its predecessor, has a score composed by Hans Zimmer.
The soundtrack is the most consistent thing in the movie. Zimmer’s score carries the savanna sequences, and will.i.am’s songs give the film a pulse that the plotting sometimes lacks.
Where the Movie Slips
The middle of Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa is a stack of parallel subplots that rarely touch. Alex has a father problem. Marty has an identity problem. Melman has a medical problem that is not really a medical problem. Gloria has a romance problem. The penguins have a mechanical problem.
Each thread is fine on its own. Together they dilute the film, because no single one gets enough time to build. Melman’s appointment as witch doctor is a good joke that the movie repeats instead of developing. As criticism, the Gloria and Moto Moto thread reads as thin — Moto Moto plays more like a punchline than a character — but that is a judgment about the writing, not something the film announces.
Nana, the tough old woman who attacked Alex in Grand Central Terminal, turns up again in Africa, takes charge of the stranded tourists, and helps them survive in the wilderness. She is a reliable laugh, and the film treats her as an ally this time rather than a threat.
The ranking of the film’s actual strengths, in order:
- The Kenya prologue, which gives Alex a history the series needed.
- Hans Zimmer’s score and will.i.am’s five songs, which hold the whole thing together.
- Alec Baldwin’s Makunga, the only new antagonist with real teeth.
- The penguins and their chimpanzee crew, still the best-running gag in the franchise.
- The watering-hole reunion, which is sweet but over too fast.
A Sequel That Improves Without Escaping
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa grossed $604 million on a $150 million budget, making it the sixth highest-grossing film of 2008. It received generally positive reviews, with critics praising its characters, humor and animation and calling it an improvement on its predecessor. That verdict is fair and it is also a low bar.
The first film stranded its animals on an island and got a lot of mileage out of fish-out-of-water jokes. The sequel has a better idea: bring them home to a version of home they have never seen, and let them find out they do not fit there either. That is a real theme, and the Kenya prologue sets it up cleanly.
The problem is that the film does not trust the theme enough to sit with it. The honest material about fathers and sons keeps getting traded for a zebra bit or a hippo bit or a penguin bit. The jokes are not bad. They are just deployed as escape hatches.
What the Animation Gets Right
The animation holds up. The savanna is wide and bright, and the film uses scale well — the watering hole feels like a place with a population, not a backdrop. Pacific Data Images and DreamWorks Animation SKG produced it, and the craft is not in question.
What is in question is nerve. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa is a sequel that improves on its original in almost every measurable way and still settles for less than its premise promises. It is funny, it is fast, and it is forgettable in the specific way that competent family animation often is: nothing in it is bad, and almost nothing in it stays with you.
The strongest argument for the film is the one it makes about itself. These animals spent a whole movie trying to get home, and the sequel asks what happens when home turns out to be a place you have to earn. That is a better question than most animated sequels ask. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa just does not answer it.
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