t the Central Park Zoo in New York, Alex the Lion (Stiller) is the main attraction among a cornucopia of captive creatures. His best friends Marty (Rock), a zebra; Gloria (Pinkett-Smith), a hippo; and Melman (Schwimmer), a giraffe, dutifully support his benevolent reign over the zoo, but lately Marty has grown a bit restless, and his latest birthday only serves as a reminder that he's never been—or even seen—outside the walls of the zoo.
Alex and the gang try to assuage Marty's wanderlust, to no avail: Marty sneaks out under cover of night for a whirlwind big-city adventure. Though his friends successfully track him down at Grand Central Station, their collective monkeyshines—perceived by the humans as an escape attempt—land them in hot water with the authorities, and animal-rights protesters earn them a one-way trip back to the jungles none of them have ever seen.
Unfortunately, the foursome's trouble-making companions, the penguins, redirect the ship to Antarctica, in the process knocking Alex, Marty, Gloria and Melman's crates overboard. They soon wash up on the shores of Madagascar, where the jungle proves more fearsome then they ever expected. Taking up with a community of lemurs led by the scatterbrained King Julian (Cohen), the former zoo crew attempts to make nice and settle into their new, decidedly rough-hewn environment.
Light lessons, heavy laughs
Following in the footsteps of Antz and Shark Tale, Madagascar is the latest family odyssey from DreamWorks. Like its predecessors, the film is never wont to preserve longevity in the name of a good punchline. (Dreamworks' films are littered with timely rather than timeless humor.) But in this particular case, that's a good thing, because the movie turns out to be one of the summer's first great surprises, and outranks any other animated film in recent memory if only for its dedicated avoidance of any and all lessons imparted or learned.
Stiller's presence in the film typically would be a deterrent, since he seems incapable of going more than three months at a time without a movie in release. But the neurotic actor proves his mettle more adeptly without that familiar face accompanying his character, and effectively embodies Alex's transformation from preening father of the pride to a frazzled lion king in search of his next meal. Chris Rock similarly does a serviceable job playing to his character, but occasionally succumbs to "Rock-isms" to drive home a joke or two ("crack-a-lackin'" couldn't be said by anyone else).
While the remainder of the cast do an equally good job bringing their cartoon counterparts to life, it's Sacha Baron Cohen who steals the show as King Julian. Sounding like Peter Sellers in The Party and riffing his lines into a veritable one-lemur show, Cohen contributes a star turn that ought to win him hordes of fans young and old (since most audiences attending this film are too young for The Ali G Show). He, along with more than a handful of throwaway gags from the frisky penguins, is what makes Madagascar truly hot.
