Back in 2005, my friends and I enjoyed the original Madagascar. Recently, we went to a movie theater looking for some laughs and saw that Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa was playing. We purchased our tickets and entered the room with high hopes but also some worries. The obvious question: Would the sequel live up to its predecessor?
Consider the main characters: Alex the Lion, Melman the Giraffe, Gloria the Hippo, and Marty the Zebra. Strand them in Madagascar, throw in some penguins, add a pinch of psychotic lemurs and some interesting monkeys, stir well with great animation and a ton of humor, and you’ve got a mix that can’t go wrong…for kids, that is.
Between the two movies, I’d say that the original had more scenes that actually made me laugh out loud, but the sequel did well to keep me chuckling minute by minute. A positive point about this is that in the theater I could hear a distinction between when it was the parents laughing vs. kids laughing. There was plenty of humor aimed at adults, and it did well to fly past the children making it a very safe PG movie. As far as the actual plot goes, the sequel (surprise, surprise) might be better. It picks up where the last movie ended, giving some flashbacks for those that missed out on the first movie. The characters have their own subplots and are more developed in this movie, and there’s a pleasant twist involving some tourists and that crazy old lady from the original.
I agree with most of the consensus stated on rottentomatoes.com: Â ”Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa is an improvement on the original, with more fleshed-out characters, crisper animation and more consistent humor.”
