Since the quartet of ass-kicking, wisecracking penguins appeared and captivated audiences in “Madagascar” and its subsequent sequels, the franchise has never been about the four main animals – Alex the lion, Marty the zebra, Melman the giraffe and Gloria the hippopotamus. Rather, one watches for the penguins, or ring-tailed lemur King Julien.
Despite a misleading “Penguins of Madagascar” trailer that shows a small clip of Skipper (voiced by Tom McGrath), Kowalski (Chris Miller) and Rico (Conrad Vernon) finding and saving a penguin egg that then hatches and presents the team with Private (Christopher Knights), the movie, released Wednesday, isn’t about childhood – or rather, baby penguin-hood. The movie follows the foursome penguin team in a fast-paced adventure as they try to escape Dave (John Malkovich), a vengeful octopus disguised as a human scientist.
The eight-legged foe holds a grudge against the black and white heroes for stealing his spotlight back at the Central Park Zoo. Since then, he has been rejected from many other zoos because of the new penguin exhibits. As a result of being shunned for not possessing the same cute and cuddly factor that the penguins have, Dave plots to turn all the penguins in the world into disgusting monsters. Skipper and his team travel across continents to try and stop Dave, but are always one-upped by an international Arctic animal spy squad known as the North Wind and led by the suave wolf Agent Classified (Benedict Cumberbatch), who swoops in and tries to stop Dave themselves.
The journey the audience takes alongside Skipper, Kowalski, Rico and Private is a humorous and light one. But “Penguins” is indeed a movie aimed for children. For the adults that have to accompany their tiny ones, “Penguins of Madagascar” is filled with clever sight gags, word mispronunciations and, most of all, puns. When Dave orders one of his octopus henchmen to nab the escaped penguins, he screams, “Nicolas! Cage them!”
Despite the frenzied action scenes in the movie, which were pretty good, there was an absence of a compelling plot. The protagonists are very cute and cuddly, as is expected, but take them away from “Madagascar,” and that’s all they have to offer. Alex, Marty, Melman and Gloria may not have been as funny as our penguin quartet, but they definitely possessed endearing neuroses that gave the characters a little bit of depth – as much as any children’s movie could. So it was surprising that the writers did not devote as much time forming the actual characters of Skipper, Kowalski, Rico and Private. They just did the same thing in “Madagascar,” but this time in a stand-alone movie.
The story tries to do too much within the time that it is given. It was first an origin story, then a coming-of-age saga, then mission impossible – and don’t forget the tale of revenge. But for children, the bright colors and full-speed action scenes should distract enough and serve as entertainment.
With moments like Private hatching out of his egg and asking his three other penguin “brothers” if they are his family, only to get a “you don’t have any family, and you’re going to die” as a response, what’s not to love? Sure, it’s jumpy, underdeveloped and pun-ny, but at least it’s a movie equipped with a machine gun loaded with puns (which is what they do: shoot the audience with pun after pun in rapid fire), rather than a movie with no plot and no humor.
“Penguins of Madagascar” is just the right movie to give people a break from any stress, which is what it’s meant for – pure brainless fun filled with adorable penguins. So for all the parents that need a night of penguins, popcorn and puns, “Penguins of Madagascar” is just the film.
