Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that there's some crude humor and sexual innuendo that will probably go over the youngest kids' head. The animals confront assorted dangerous situations, including an encounter with police, containment in crates (dark, closed spaces), a stormy sea and shipwreck, and, most alarmingly, a startling personality change in Alex, the lion, when he wants to eat his friends. There's a shooting with tranquilizer darts in which a character hallucinates to the tune of Sammy Davis Jr.'s song "Candyman" (younger viewers won't know this is about drugs, but the allusion is there). Gloria the hippo briefly appears with seaweed on her body, simulating "pasties" on breasts and crotch area. The lemurs are hunted by scary hyena-like creatures. A secondary plot has a crew of penguins acting like spies, which has them tunneling out of the zoo, knocking out a ship's captain, and stealing an ocean liner.
Families can talk about the film's portrayals of friendships and how friends can deal with their companions' different personalities. Families can also discuss the film's use of clichés and stereotypes as jokes (the "island" music that characterizes the lemur community, the whiny hypochondriac, the fey lemur king).
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Cynthia Fuchs
A cute idea that finds nowhere to go, MADAGASCAR features animated zoo animals whose routine and friendships are rattled when they step outside their regulated lives.
Unhappy with his lot in New York's Central Park Zoo, a zebra named Marty (voiced by Chris Rock) has just turned 10 years old. Looking back on his life so far, he yearns for open spaces and herds of other zebras, but his zoo friends -- Alex the lion (Ben Stiller), Gloria the hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith), and Melman the giraffe (David Schwimmer, basically playing Ross as a cartoon; in future, he might want to stretch out some) -- are content where they are. Alex is especially reluctant to leave, because he's pampered like a celebrity (he has a treadmill in his cage, has steaks delivered and his cage cleaned, and performs daily for enthusiastic crowds).
Still, when Marty makes a break one night, they all follow to rescue him, and end up caught by human authorities who can't understand them (when the animals talk, humans only hear roars and snorts). As a result, the humans ship the animals off, only to have the ship sink during a storm and land the surviving animals on Madagascar, where the two central communities are the lemurs (who come in several shapes and sizes, led by King Julien [Sacha Baron Cohen, a.k.a. Ali G], attended by Maurice [Cedric the Entertainer] and Mort (Andy Richter]), and the lemur-eating fossas.
A crisis emerges when Alex gets hungry (his ribs stick out, his eyes turn dark), and begins to hallucinate that his friends are juicy steaks on legs, just before he roars and attacks them. When he realizes what he's doing, he's mortified, but his instincts are hard to repress. Eventually, the friends find a solution. They feed Alex sushi (an odd choice, considering fish may be as humanlike in movies as animals), leave the island "paradise," and resolve to return to some form of captivity.
Families who enjoy this movie might like Disney's animated films, The Jungle Book or The Lion King (keep in mind that a murdered father initiates Simba's journey), or the live-action animal adventure, The Incredible Journey. Director Eric Darnell also made Antz, which features a similar dynamic: a group of ants must come together to survive.
Rate It!
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Sexual ContentBrief shot of girl hippo pretending to wear "pasties." |
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ViolenceFossas attack lemurs; lion attacks his friends, no explicit violence, but some startling imagery. |
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LanguageMild -- words are suggested ("dam" used with "Hoover," "shh" leading to "sugar," etc.). |
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Social BehaviorLearning about loyalty; some conflicts and some selfishness. |
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Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoLion shot with tranquilizers hallucinates. |
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