Four zoo animals break out of the Central Park Zoo, wash up on an island, and spend 86 minutes learning that freedom is mostly hunger. That is Madagascar, DreamWorks Animation’s 2005 comedy, and it is a film with a better premise than it has jokes.
Trailer, via Universal Kids.
Alex, Marty, Melman and Gloria
The setup is clean. Alex is a lion and the star attraction at the Central Park Zoo, billed as the “King of New York.” Marty is a zebra who turns ten and decides he has had enough of the same day on repeat. Melman is a giraffe, Gloria is a hippo, and the four of them are best friends until Marty walks out.
Ben Stiller voices Alex. Chris Rock voices Marty. David Schwimmer and Jada Pinkett Smith round out the quartet as Melman and Gloria. It is a strong cast on paper, and the film gives Rock the most room to run.
Marty follows the zoo’s four penguin spies toward Grand Central Terminal, aiming for a train to Connecticut. Alex, Melman and Gloria chase him. So do the penguins, plus the chimpanzee duo Mason and Phil. An army of officers subdues them all.
The Ship, the Crates, the Island
Animal rights activists pressure the zoo, and the escaped animals get shipped by sea to a nature reserve in Kenya. The penguins break out of their crate, hijack the vessel and set course for Antarctica. The crates holding Alex and his friends fall overboard.
They wash ashore on Madagascar, an island off East Africa, and meet its lemurs, led by King Julien XIII. Fossa attack the lemurs. Alex’s fearsome appearance scares them off. Then Alex, homesick and furious, blames Marty for all of it.
The film’s real problem starts here. Alex makes rescue attempts that fail, his hunger builds without the raw steaks the zoo provided, and the story drifts. Marty loves Madagascar. Gloria and Melman come around to it. The tension between Alex’s appetite and his friends is the only engine left, and the movie does not push it hard enough.
Sacha Baron Cohen Rewrites King Julien
The best decision in Madagascar happened in the recording booth. Julien was written as a minor character with two lines. Sacha Baron Cohen auditioned, improvised an Indian accent and eight minutes of dialogue, and the filmmakers found it so funny that they rewrote the script and made Julien the “King of the Lemurs.”
That is the whole movie in one anecdote. A throwaway part became the thing people quote. Cedric the Entertainer voices Maurice and Andy Richter voices Mort, but Julien is the one who escapes the film.
Dana Carvey was offered a role and turned it down, citing raising kids at the time.
Hans Zimmer and ‘I Like to Move It’
Hans Zimmer wrote the score. Baron Cohen covers “I Like to Move It” by Reel 2 Real, and that cover has since become a recurring theme across the franchise — a stranger legacy than anything in the plot.
Tom McGrath, who co-directed with Eric Darnell, also voices Skipper, a fossa and a panicky man on the subway. Christopher Knights is Private, Chris Miller is Kowalski, Conrad Vernon is Mason, and Darnell voices the zoo announcer, a lemur, a fossa and a subway car announcer. Billy Frolick, Mark Burton, McGrath and Darnell wrote the script.
What the Film Gets Right and Wrong
The animation and the voice work hold up. The visuals are bright and the animal designs read instantly. The penguins are the sharpest comic idea in the film — a paramilitary unit in tuxedos who treat a zoo break as a military operation and hijack a ship without a second thought. They earned their own spin-off for a reason.
The story is where Madagascar loses its footing. The film strands its characters and then has nowhere to send them. Alex’s hunger is set up as a real threat and then softened. The lemurs arrive as a comic detour, not a plot.
| Element | What Madagascar does | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Penguins | Break out, hijack the ship, head for Antarctica | Best comic thread, spun off into its own film |
| King Julien | Two lines, expanded to a lead after Baron Cohen’s audition | The franchise’s signature character |
| Alex’s hunger | Set up as a threat, then defused | The film’s biggest missed turn |
| The quartet’s friendship | Tested, then restored without much cost | Warm, but low stakes |
The Franchise It Started
Madagascar grossed $558 million on a $75 million production budget, the sixth highest-grossing film of 2005. That number bought two sequels, a spin-off film, several short films, television series and specials, video games, theme park attractions and live stage shows.
The box office is not a mystery. The premise sells itself, the cast is a draw, and the penguins and Julien give kids something to repeat. The film is built to launch things, and it launched them.
The Verdict
Madagascar is a 5.7 out of 10. It is a well-cast, well-animated comedy with a premise that promises more than the script delivers. The middle sags, the central conflict resolves without cost, and the funniest material — the penguins, Julien — arrived almost by accident.
What matters most here is what the film revealed about its own production. The two elements that made Madagascar endure were not the plan. Julien was a two-line part until Baron Cohen improvised eight minutes. The penguins were a side gag that turned into a franchise. A movie that gets its best ideas by accident is still a movie that got them, and that is worth more than the $558 million alone.
The score is 5.7 of 10.
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