Penguins of Madgascar

Work that money maker

The Penguins are back at it, in this newest installment of the Madagascar series. Skipper, Kowalski, Private, and Rico (Tom McGrath, Chris Miller, Christopher Knights, and Conrad Vernon) are hunted by an evil Octopus named Dave (John Malkovich) leading a band of squids. Dave has an ax to grind against all penguins, since their cuteness robbed him of the zoo spotlight years ago. It is up to the penguins, with the help of a secret organization called The Northwind, to put an end to Dave's master plan, and celebrate with a high one.

So, this movie embodies the essence of why animated pictures don't get the respect they deserve most times. At the core of this series is a money grubbing machine, that seeks to take every last penny from the parents of children, and will never stop as long as there is a box office to be made. That is why this spawned off into a television series on Nickelodeon (which I never watched), and is the first spin-off of a movie series that already has three films in it. Does that automatically make this a bad movie? No, just soulless. This is, by all accounts, a standard Dreamworks spin-off. Probably good for the kids but no real winning comedy for anyone over the age of eight. This always goes back into my argument that "animated films should be fun for all ages," but very few animated films seem to grasp that concept these days.... well Disney gets it most of the time, and Dreamworks/Blue Sky usually do well their first time around for movies, but that is about it. There are a couple of cute jokes in the movie, but nothing that really screams out to you. Like them playing around with the names of henchmen when saying "Halle bury them" or "Nicholas cage them."... you see the way he is saying the names makes it sound like famous people.... Is this thing on? Yeah, if that didn't grab you then I apologize, this movie is not for you.

The morals of the story in this are as simplistic, and written on the walls as the jokes are. Listen to your friends (or maybe respect your subordinates for the older crowd), believe in yourself (because that horse hasn't been beaten to death yet apparently), and looks don't matter as much as being a good person. All very pertinent morals in today's society, but the delivery of the message is all over the place. It was kind of like the "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" of delivery: one moral spoke too loud, one was just right, and one moral screamed from the top of a mountain, causing an avalanche and killing hundreds. Yeah, whenever you blatant say the moral of your movie, you might as well just stop the animation, break the forth wall, and start lecturing the kids in the audience. Again, these morals are all things kids should learn, but you need to sneak it in so it doesn't feel like the kids are being talked down to.

The acting in this is something that I had a hard time grappling with. There is a voice actor whom I deeply admire and respect that voiced one of the penguins in the Nickelodeon television show, so I was feeling a bit biased thinking he was a voice in this. Since they replaced him, I feel less biased. The penguins in this are Dreamworks regulars, real salt of the earth, under appreciated talent that I always love seeing. They brought the voices for these characters back (the same as they always do), and knocked it out of the park. Now we come to the others, or "seen actors" who decided to voice a role in this. I usually have hatred for seen actors that dip there toes in with voice actors, but I know it drives ticket sales, and sometimes they perform well. Take John Malkovich and Peter Stormare who brought life to their characters, and acted like they were getting a paycheck for speaking into a microphone. No gripes on that front, now we get to something that eats at my core. I respect Benedict Cumberbatch as an actor, but he brought nothing to this movie. It was almost like hearing him read a script, and I don't want to hear him read a script, I want to hear him act. No emphasis on words, no emotion, just bland and dull. If you needed to pay someone for having a British accent, please give it to someone who actually enjoys the work he is doing.

Final Verdict: Pirate it Nothing special here, just your run of the mill animated picture to soften the week Horrible Bosses 2 came out. If you have the DVD/BLU RAY of either How to Train Your Dragon 2 or The Lego Movie I would suggest re-watching that.