Alex the Lion, Martie the Zebra, Melman the Giraffe and Gloria the hippo are back, along with the monkeys, penguins and king louie. They're ready to leave Madagascar and to head back to Central Park Zoo in the remains of a crashed aeroplane that the penguins have reconstructed.

So, quite after flying the face of aviation science and actually taking off in their "plane", the animals make it as far as mainland Africa before crash landing into a wildlife reserve where they find out a little more about themselves.

I probably haven't made this film sound that good, but I want to reassure you that it is better than I have made it sound. It's one of those films that made me laugh a lot, although looking back on it, none of the jokes specifically come to mind.

They make a lot more use of the penguins in this film, which is good because they are the best part. In some ways you could almost loose the main animals and just have the extra animals whilst still having a good film.

That said then, I did think that storylines for a few of the main characters were poorly thought through and it did suffer in some of the same ways as Shrek the Third in that they tried to almost artificially come up with storylines for certain characters.

That said, if you liked the first one, you'll find this one rather 'crack-a-lackin'.

see also:
Arthur Christmas, Up, Flushed Away, Cloudy with a chance of meatballs

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photo © Dreamworks Animation.