Review of Penguins of Madagascar (2014) by Maksim B — 10 Mar 2015

Yet another studio attempt for an animated franchise spinoff, Penguins of Madagascar is a wild, mindless but relatively funny cartoon adventure. Based entirely on the cult penguins from the Madagascar franchise, it relies only on the wild cuteness of the four adventurous rascals and fails to capture the environmental messages or family values which were part of the original franchise.

Have to team up with a secret anti-villain organization called The North Wind in order to tack and to stop the evil anti-penguins plan of Dr. Octavious Brine. A story that is as straight-forward as it could be, Penguins of Madagascar focuses on the wild action, dancing, jumping, changing clothes penguins and the loads of typical gags and craziness that obtained the penguins a cult status within the Madagascar trilogy. Colorful, Bond-like and extremely fast-paced, Simon Smith's cartoon is a true wild ride adventure for younger kids.

Unfortunately, that is also the main problem of Smith's delivery. In his attempt to use the penguins wild image he has made a movie that focuses so much on the simple, straight-forward adventure that the cartoon is appealing only to young kids who would not search for any family values or any emotional load in the story. This damages Penguins of Madagascar heavily as at one point the viewer might become uninterested in the next portion of action or travelling the world to get Dr. Octavius.

Nevertheless, Penguins of Madagascar remains a relatively decent and passable cartoon that would make you smile and why not even laugh at Skipper, Kowalski, Rico and Private's wild cuteness. It would never touch you as other DreamWorks deliveries and you would probably not remember anything from it in some month, but it would entertain while you watch it.