Madagascar 2 (2008)
This movie never really clicked with me. It's not the story, the basic premiss is fine and the artstyle was new, with a more angular design that made it stand out from both disney and other Dreamworks projects (the first movie excluded). It actually brings to mind a cleaner, brighter, more three dimensional version of Mike Mignola's drawing style.
We pick up more or less where we left of in the first movie. The four main characters have spent some time on Madagascar and are now ready to leave in a plane built by the penguines. Predictably, this dosen't go well and they crash in the middle of an african savanna. At this point, the movie branches of into four parts as the four friends discover more of their own kind. Alex's story turns into something akin to
The Lion King, complete with an evil uncle wanting to take power as Alex finds his parents in the local lion population. Through Alex, the uncle manages in one fell swoop to banish not only him, but also Alex's parents from the pride and install himself as the new Alpha. Meanwhile, Marty wrestles with indentity issues, Melman becomes a witch-doctor and Gloria gets courted by the local Hunk of the hippos.
In the end, I think it's the characters that I didn't like. Or maybe it's more acurate to say I don't like the way they're written and the humour they provide. I found Julian annoying (nothing new there, never been a fan of Sasha Baron Cohen)and the main four were kinda bland most of the time. Schwimmer's hypochondriac giraffe got tired half an hour into the previous movie and the hippo's part could've been cut as far as I'm concerned.
I liked the penguins, they're allways good for a laugh, and the chimps forming a union and fighting for better conditions cracked me up. What few glimpses we got of the tourists led by granny steelfist was entertaining, but my guess is that they had the proper amount of them so as to not overdo it. There were some actor that delivered solid performances; Alec Baldwin's allways entertaining, and as the evil uncle he got a few moment that made me smirk a bit. Bernie Mac put in a lot of heart into Alex's dad, being somewhat disaproving of how he turned out, but in the end he saw how Alex had survived in another form of hostile enviorment.
Overall, some good and some bad, resulting in a meh from me. Sorry Tatt, this just wasn't a favourite of mine.