We took our under 6 brood to see Madagascar today, along with many other people. We had the slight embarassment of bumping into friends on the way in who were turned away because the movie was sold out. Fortunately, we had bought our tickets beforehand. C'est la vie. As it turns out, they may have been the lucky ones.
Unless your five-year-old lives in the five boroughs and reads the NYT Book Review, this movie may miss its mark. I think the Tom Wolfe joke ten minutes in set the tone for the whole movie. The creative premise is that a band of Central Park Zoo buddies (a zebra, lion, hippo and giraffe) embarks on an adventure and through a series of fortunate or unfortunate events, wind up in "the wild." (To give you a taste, the Manhattanite animals thought the wild was in Connecticut.) The group is so thoroughly domesticated that they don't realize until they are there that in the wild, the lion would eat the zebra.
In the Woody Allen Movie Husbands and Wives, Mia Farrow's character is arguing with her husband, Allen's character. She is calling him out for telling people at parties that he wants to move to Europe. "That's just a flirting technique; you couldn't survive off the island of Manhattan for 48 hours." Madagascar is Woody Allen meets Heart of Darkness. Soon after the friends arrive in Madagascar, the lion, Alex, realizes that the steaks at the zoo come from actual animals like his zebra friend, Marty. Alex reverts to "the wild." To chart his regression, his mane, once smoothly coiffed, kinks up in to a frizzy look, which is sort of discomforting to think about. Once Alex snaps out of his Kurtz-like trance at the end, his mane looks Miss Clairol straightened again.
If the original Shrek was a hit because it had laughs for the grown-ups, and Shrek 2 overdid the grown-up laughs, then Madagascar continues down the spectrum, leaving the kids in the theater with puzzled looks on their faces. I'm never one for gratuitously adding potty humor to kids' movies just for laughs, but I laughed the loudest at one line. (This may reflect more on the other jokes in the movie than on my sense of humor.) Toward the beginning, the zoo gang gets busted at Grand Central Station. As two monkeys have guns turned on them, the head monkey says, "If you have poop, fling it now." I guess you had to be there.
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Article comments
1 - Lennie
Yep, same reaction here as well. The story was very weak.
2 - Eric Berlin
Tom Wolfe joke? Wow.
3 - Roz Taylor
My husband and I took our four year old and ten year old to see the movie and found that neither we nor our kids were a bit dissapointed. Many people tend to look at the entertainment facet of the movie and critique it for its(many times) out of place humor, but the truth of the matter is that this is 2005 and the face of entertainment is changing just like most of society. To make a long story short I sing nothing less than praise to this movie.
Educationally, this movie inspired my children to come home and do something that I have been beating myself silly about...Research...learn more...until this movie my children could not care less about Madagascar or the animals that lived there. This movie inspired my children to go to the library and find out more about Lemurs and Foosa and I must admit I was a bit curious myself. My ten year old even printed out a map of Madagascar and has it hanging on her wall now. She tells everyone about the different types of animals that live there. She saw the movie before most of her friends so now when they go see the movie they have a little background information. Contrarily, my four year old now wants a lemur for a pet.
Socially, this movie addresses the issue of realizing that our differences can be overcome by the powers of the heart. I mean really what is more ironic than predator and prey engaging in frienship. While at the Central park zoo it was Alex the lion who comforted Marty the Zebra during his time of confusion. In the wild it was Marty who had faith in Alex even after his mane kinked and frizzed and the true relationship between predator and prey was unveiled. When Alex thanked Marty for not giving up on him my four year old made the comment that people should be like animals sometimes and not turn away from people when they don't always do good things. To me, that remark, coming from a four year old was very profound. She may have missed some of the jokes, but she ingested the important parts.
Lastly, the fact that the movie had much adult appeal was wonderful. I thought the use of "heck" instead of Hell was wonderful. We live in a society today that dictates that children have one set agenda and adults have another. So, what happens when the two agendas merge? In some cases "Madagascar" happens. You have parents that can go to a movie with their children and enjoy the movie simply because they do get all of the adult parts while at the same time you have children who sit alongside their parents and they enjoy seeing their parents just as interested and amused as are they. Children are very perceptive, they know when we are bored to death. My children and I had the time of our lives and we laughed, repeated funny lines, laughed some more, and the best part is that the enjoyment was truly genuine.
I know that everyone has their own opinion, but I think that this movie was sort of a blessing and an epiphany for my children and me. I appreciate the fact that it may possibly have bridged a gap between childhood and adulthood, thus creating a safe haven for an occassional lapse of adult into the world of the child.