Review of Penguins of Madagascar (2014) by Akshay H — 28 Feb 2015

Witty penguins void of a good story.

I have always been a fan of the Penguins from the Madagascar franchise which has some amusing characters. I have not watched the TV series going by same name as this film. Was pretty excited about the movie but unfortunately it fell well short and is probably the worst film in the Madagascar franchise. While the Penguins with their witty dialogues and slapstick humor were very really funny and enjoyable, the plot is such a letdown compared to the level of penguins.

We begin in Antarctica were three penguins Skipper, Kowalski and Rico first meet Private. Then the story then shifts to events after Madagascar 3, Penguins get caught by a mysterious octopus called Dave (aka Dr.Octavious Brine in human-form.) who is seeking revenge for a ridiculous reason (see for yourself). A spy organization called North Wind then steps into action helping the Penguins, but the penguins believed they were good on their own. Then we have the goofy overly confident penguins failing first, realizing they ain't what they believed they were but ultimately becoming heroes in the end. Wow, so original. In fact towards the end when Dave converts cute-penguins into monstrous- penguins it feels like a bad rip-off of Despicable Me 2.

The animation was pretty good though. Dreamworks have been doing really great recently technically but writing wise same cannot be said (except for HTTYD). While Penguins get the deserved focus, but as protagonists they fail to be impact-full. Other characters from North Wind get less focus and are void of good story development in spite of being very interesting characters. Finally the villain, Dave is easily one of the worst villains in any animated film. The thing made me like Madagascar a lot more is the wide variety of characters it put in a single bag giving equal weightage and focus to all of them. The plot in animated films can never be expected to be much credible. Here the Penguin humor was good as expected. The one I liked the most was the pun with celebrity names. The only reason I would say to watch it would be strictly for the Penguins and their antics. Remove that there is nothing much left. A real disappointment.

RATING: [2/5].