Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa

(Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath):

(Voices of) Ben Stiller, Chris Rock,
David Schwimmer, Jada Pinkett
Smith, Sacha Baron Cohen.

Running time: 89 minutes. (G)

Rating: 1/5

Dreamworks has been left for dead by the clever clogs at Pixar. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, the new Dreamworks offering, makes Pixar's Wall-e look like Shakespeare. Certainly it looks like it was written by a few monkeys and a typewriter, but instead of an eternity, they had to throw it together during cocktail hour. It's a lazy update of what was only a mediocre cartoon.

Once again, New York Zoo animals Alex the Lion, Marty the Zebra, Melman the Giraffe and Gloria the Hippo travel to Africa. Alex discovers his lost family, while the story offers a whole range of unconvincing emotional problems for the others. The brash assembly of character stereotypes, chaotic slapstick for kids, blunt cultural references for parents, is ticking boxes of the template. There are a few jokes that tickle and most of them come courtesy of a quartet of sociopathic penguins. They really could do with a cartoon all of their own.

But this is soulless, heartless stuff – the kind of animation junkfood that will have your brain rumbling with hunger five minutes after seeing it.