Madagascar

First, I saw the last one-third of this film on the ferry from Muskegon to Milwaukee. And I thought, without having seen the first bits, that this was one of the dopiest kids films ever. Here's a zoo-based lion, deprived of food for a week in the wild, ready to eat his pals. What kind of moral message are we sending children when it involves actually eating other beings? I know, I know, it's all a metaphor for learning the value of friendship, but I found it a rather distasteful one. Then, I watched the whole film from start to finish at a drive-in in lower Ontario (at which the drive-in, and only the drive-in, got soaked in a monstrous thunderstorm) and actually laughed at the first two- thirds. Because the first parts in the zoo are quite funny, especially the bits with the mafia-like penguins and the erudite chimps. And once they're shipwrecked on the island of Madagascar (don't ask) the lemurs' funky dancing and silly king (voiced uniquely and hysterically by Sacha Baron Cohen) are even funnier. Then the movie devolves into the part I saw on the ferry and I was as disturbed by it as earlier. But if the ending gets people to eat more fish (I'll say no more) and to hire Cohen for more (more! more!) parts, and not only voice parts, then the movie has done its job.

year: 2005
length: 86 min.
rating: 2.5
IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0351283/combined