Madagascar

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Movie Details

• Genre: Animation, Comedy, Family
• Release Date: 2005-05-27 Nationwide
• Running Time: 80 min.
• Director: Eric Darnell
• Cast: Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, Jada Pinkett-Smith
• Producer: Karey Kirkpatrick
• Writer: Billy Frolick, Mark Burton
• Distributor: Dreamworks
• Official Site: Madagascar Official Site

As this DreamWorks cartoon begins, you're thinking, Hey--Ben Stiller must've finally put some pressure on his agent, 'cause he's not playing the usual role of Wimpy, Mild-Mannered Guy Who's Afraid of Change, Germs, and/or the Dark. Stiller, voicing Alex the Lion, the Central Park Zoo's star attraction, is brash and confident and sexy, the sun around which revolve the zoo's other creatures: thoughtful Marty the Zebra (Chris Rock), sassy Gloria the Hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith), and hypochondriac Melman the Giraffe (David Schwimmer, playing the only role his agent knows how to get him). Then Marty, inspired by the tunnel-digging of a band of conspiratorial penguins, breaks out of the zoo in an attempt to escape to the untamed wilds of Connecticut, where animals roam free beyond mankind's tyrannical reach. Alex, reluctant to face change, darkness, and the germs indigenous to the New York City subway, morphs into Greg Focker with a mane, nagging his pal to return to the safety of the zoo until they find themselves washed up on the island country of the title, where he nags him some more. For the sequel, I'd like to request a relocation to SeaWorld and an appearance by Robert De Niro's character from Shark Tale. (Mikael Wood)