DAP - Movie #6: Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa

This is part of my ongoing series of DAP posts.

Dreamworks Animation Movie #6
Madagascar 2: Escape 2 Africa
2008
Rating: PG
Budget: 150 million
Box Office: 602 million plus (over half a billion dollars!!!)

IMDb Logline: "The animals try to fly back to New York City, but crash-land on an African wildlife refuge, where Alex is reunited with his parents."

This sequel was absolutely delightful! It's rare for a sequel to best its predecessor but this one goes down as my favorite Dreamworks Animated movie of those I have viewed so far.

The characters were developed even further, and even Chris Rock's Marty won me over. Despite my not loving his voice in Madagascar 1, it was comedic genius to have him voice the entire herd of thousands of zebras in the sequel.

What's really impressive is how well Madagascar 2 balanced all of the cool animal characters introduced in the first Madagascar, while adding new lovable animals to the fold - including Zuba, Alex's dad, voiced by the late great Bernie Mac.

This is no easy feat, considering along with the main 4 animal friends of Marty the Zebra, Alex the Lion, Gloria the Hippo and Ross, I mean Melman the Giraffe, they have:
the still terrific lemur King Julien;
the still adorable Mort;
the still hysterical penguin commandos, who elevated the movie every time one of them opened his cute little beak (Skipper even gets married to a hula doll, Lola);

and the happy return of the Chimp Duo Mason & Phil, who recruit an entire barrel of monkeys!

Yet, the writers were able to effectively integrate all of the various storylines and tie them together with a satisfying, uplifting ending, without any animals we loved getting lost in the shuffle.

I also appreciated the film's less traumatizing angle on the "Lion King" (also known as the other animated lion movie set in Africa concerning a father-son relationship that shall not be named by Dreamworks). The story was sweet, funny, and fun for all ages.

The music (with an assist from will.i.am, who also voiced the beefcake hippo Moto Moto) and choreography (yes, choreography is involved even in animated movies!) were excellent too.

I liked the movie so much, I rewatched most of it with the Filmmakers Commentary, available as a DVD special feature. It was really impressive to hear more about the complexities, hard work, attention to detail and teamwork involved in bringing this type of endeavor to completion over the course of 3.5 years. This movie didn't seem to cut corners in bringing its story to animated life - the creative team even took a 10-day trip to Africa to collect art, thousands of photos and at least a day's worth of video footage to inform their story-telling/animation. It strikes me that Madagascar 2 truly earned its half billion in revenue.