Review of Madagascar (2005) by Logan A — 06 Jul 2012

Though generally good-spirited and well-meaning and featuring a surprisingly diverse and talented voice-acting cast, Madagascar is what we've come to expect from Dreamworks: animated schlock that merely does what it's supposed to rather than impress us on any level like Pixar does while catering to the lowest common denominator in humor.

While there's a clever joke here or there, for the most part the humor is juvenile and restricted to either butt-jokes or references to pop-culture. Adults will get a few chuckles out of it, but mostly find it annoying.

The animation, which you'd expect to be top-notch for a company competing with Pixar, is actually shockingly inept in parts, looking wooden or stiff when it should be fluid enough to make me think this is a cartoon made by professionals. Even for 2005 this looks like it could have been an independent production by a team of recent Animation School graduates working with TrueSpace.

Avoid unless dragged to it by your kids.