Madagascar 2: Escape 2 Africa (2009)

Directed by Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath. Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, Jada Pinkett Smith, Sacha Baron Cohen, Cedric the Entertainer, Andy Richter, Bernie Mac, Alec Baldwin. DreamWorks.

From a National Catholic Register review

By Steven D. Greydanus

Released ten years after Pixar’s pioneering Toy Story, the first fully computer-animated feature film, DreamWorks Animation’s 2005 entry Madagascar is a credible contender for the dubious distinction of being the first truly lame computer-animated cartoon (if you don’t count the lame but non-cartoony CGI realism of the non-comedy fantasies Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and The Polar Express).

A listless, strangely cheap-looking affair lacking even the modicum of heart and energy — to say nothing of the visual interest — of a Shrek or Shark Tale, Madagascar’s tale of four Central Park Zoo animals making a break for the wild and winding up shipwrecked on the titular island was nevertheless a major hit with undemanding family audiences. And where there’s a hit, sure as rain, there must be a sequel.

Madagascar 2: Escape 2 Africa reunites the ensemble cast of the first film, and more money and effort has been thrown at the script and on the screen. The characters look about as good as they could be made to look while still resembling their original incarnations. The story — in which our heroes, the paramilitary penguins (once again the funniest and liveliest part of the mix) and a few of the lemurs escape from Madagascar in what’s left of a wrecked plane, only to crash it again in Africa near a wildlife preserve — is more competently crafted, building to a traditional climax where the original sort of petered out in the third act.

It’s also a bit of a hodgepodge, combining elements of The Lion King, Joe vs. the Volcano, Happy Feet and some romantic comedy that I’m sure must exist but which I haven’t yet identified. To wit:

The Lion King: A lion cub is separated from his kingly father due to the machinations of a scheming rival and grows up far away from the pride, never learning the ways of adult lionhood. The rival succeeds in taking over the pride, after which the plain goes from a paradise to a dustbowl. In this case the cub is Alex (Ben Stiller), whom a flashback prologue reveals was born in Africa but fell prey to poachers and wound up in Central Park Zoo by mistake.




Joe vs. the Volcano: A hypochondriac New Yorker who thinks he’s about to die of a terminal disease volunteers to throw himself into a volcano as a sacrificial victim to bring blessings to the local natives, only admitting his true feelings to the girl he loves just before his imminent death. This would be Melman the giraffe (David Schwimmer), while the girl is… well, wait for it.

Happy Feet: A macho animal father is chagrined by his son’s unbecoming affinity for dancing — a misunderstood habit that is socially suicidal among his fellows, but turns out to be critical in engaging human beings. This, again, is Alex, whose Central Park Zoo antics don’t fly back on the wildlife preserve.

More significantly, Madagascar 2 not only recalls Happy Feet’s satire of religion, it also makes the latter’s coy coming-out subtext look tame compared to its own overt running theme of sexual diversity.

Not once but twice in Madagascar 2 we are told that “Love transcends all differences” and “Love knows no boundaries.” Thus, for example, that Gloria (Jada Pinkett Smith) the hippo’s interest in meeting males of her own species, whether in the zoo “breeding program” or among the wild hippos of Africa, sends Melman (David Schwimmer) the giraffe into jealous indignation, since (the filmmakers have now decided) the awkward Melman has always carried a torch for Gloria.

In Africa, a sensual, ultra-macho hippo (husky-voiced rapper will.i.am) named Moto Moto (which we’re told means “hot hot”) expertly puts the moves on Gloria, who responds with all the “take me” willingness of a hippo who hears her biological clock ticking — until she realizes that Melman’s sweet devotion makes Moto Moto’s Barry White on-the-make style seem shallow. Ultimately, Gloria realizes that she’s traveled halfway around the world to find that the perfect guy for her was always right under her nose. Haven’t we seen this before in some chick flick where the heroine decides to ditch the stud and stick with the platonic/gay best friend, or something like that?

This builds to a scene in which Melman, convinced that he’s dying and preparing to offer himself as a sacrifice to the gods of the volcano, stands decked out in garlands and a kind of veil that gives him a distinctly bridal look — a connection reinforced when Gloria snatches him from falling to his death and stands holding him in her arms like a groom carrying a bride across the threshold.

This is immediately followed by, yes, a wedding scene, with the bridal Melman apparently marrying Gloria — though it turns out that another even more mismatched “couple” is apparently getting hitched (whether it’s a double wedding or misdirection wasn’t clear to me). Madagascar 2 repeatedly “pairs” the crisp-talking penguin Skipper (co-director Tom McGrath) with — I am not making this up — a hula-dancer bobble-doll.

Prior to the mock wedding, I thought the Skipper–doll theme reached a low point when the chimps, negotiating labor benefits with the penguins, produce “incriminating” photos of Skipper and the bobble-doll in their bid to secure maternity leave. I guess sexual blackmail knows no boundaries either. Incidentally, the photos are produced in response to Skipper’s objection to offering maternity leave on the grounds that (with a glance under the table) the chimps are “all male.”

Then there are further cross-dressing jokes, from an opening scene with King Julien (Sacha Baron Cohen) of the lemurs popping out of a cake dressed as a girl chortling “I’m a female! Which of you is attracted to me?” to a closing gag in which Alex, reunited with his leonine father Zuba (Bernie Mac), convince rival male Makunga (Alec Baldwin) that a lady’s pocketbook is a “man-bag” and get him to put it over his shoulder as a prelude to a butt-kicking.

All told, Madagascar 2 crosses the line from poor taste to propaganda. It’s family entertainment for the posthuman family, whatever that may entail (love transcends all differences). A generation raised on entertainment like this will find the passage of California’s Proposition 8 incomprehensible.

Then there’s Julien’s religious commentary. Just prior to taking off from Madagascar in their salvaged plane, Julien advises the passengers to “pray to your personal god this hunk of junk flies.” In Africa, proposing the volcano sacrifice, Julien performs an extended comic dramatization of a volcano god satiated with sacrifices while a hospitable worshipper insists that he take more. Later, concerned that his sacrifice proposal hasn’t worked, Julien exclaims, “The science seemed so solid!” Finally, an alternate “sacrifice” occurs at the very moment that the problem is solved, allowing Julien to believe that the gods have heard him, though we know the real explanation. None of this is as subversive as Happy Feet’s anti-religious themes, but it doesn’t help either.

I see I’ve left out, among other things, Marty (Chris Rock) the zebra’s identity crisis on learning that all African zebras look and sound exactly like him. Does this mean even female zebras sound like Chris Rock, or that there are no female zebras? At this point I’m not sure I want to know.

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Review "DRAGONBALL EVOLUTION"

2000 years ago a menacing alien threat named Piccolo and a destructive god named Oozaru laid waste to the earth before being imprisoned by a loyal order of monks. Now Piccolo is loose and is after the seven mystical Dragonballs, which will grant the owner a wish, and naturally Piccolo wants to destroy the earth again. It's up to Goku, a young Ki master with a secret and his scrappy band of adventurers to stop Piccolo and collect the Dragonballs.
Otaku the world over just love to complain about live-action adaptations of beloved anime series, usually months – if not years – before they come out, determined to hate the final product regardless of what it is. It could be argued that they're not giving some of these projects a fair shake from the get-go; they're hating just to hate, swearing fealty to the original show or manga, convinced Hollywood just can't ever get it right.

Dragonball: Evolution was no exception. Fans decried every scrap of material they could get their hands on, from leaked screencaps to shots of unpainted action figures to the teaser trailers, each time their derisive laughter and scorn growing louder and louder. A tiny handful of people remained cautiously optimistic, praying that 20th Century Fox had managed to distill the essence of the eternally popular, internationally beloved and downright legendary Dragon Ball story into a 90-minute action adventure that, while perhaps not adhering so closely to the exact plot and pacing of the original story, did provide a faithful and entertaining homage that might pave the way for increasingly loyal adaptations down the road.

Here's what happened instead: a bunch of talentless hacks with studio money slapped together a big steaming pile of baffling garbage that fails utterly on every possible level and will please no one at all.

The fans were right.

Here's how it goes: the movie opens with a brief montage about an evil alien named Piccolo and a monkey lookin’ god of destruction named Oozaru who destroyed the earth's population 2000 years ago and were sealed up by an order of monks (or something) who imprisoned Piccolo and I guess sent Oozaru away to space jail or whatever. So now it's 2000 years later and we're introduced to scrappy young Goku, who is training at his grandfather Gohan's ranch-temple-Karate dojo thing out in the country, and has trouble at high school because he's so special and different (why his classmates think he's different or weird, we are never told nor shown). After taking out some bullies (who menacingly call him “Geeko” over and over again, for no discernable reason, especially considering he looks and dresses exactly like them) he catches the eye of ChiChi, a cute girl who knows he's using his Ki power after he opens her stubborn locker for her with his amazing airbending skills. Turns out ChiChi is a fighter too, and she's totally digging on Goku's style. Love interest alert! Who'da thunk?

So then Piccolo – who has somehow broken out of imprisonment, the hows and whys of which are never explained at all - shows up in his big flying office building thing that nobody seems to notice hovering around in the clouds, crushes Gohan's karate ranch using the Power of the Force after he discovers Gohan no longer has the 4-star Dragonball. After all, he gave it to Goku for his 18th birthday, and wouldn't you know it, Goku is at ChiChi's bangin’ high school party at a McMansion in the San Fernando Valley the futuristic city of Who Cares. So Goku returns to conveniently find Gohan, just about to die, but just alive enough to tell Goku to believe in himself (among a handful of other convenient noble one-liners destined to be repeated later in the film) and that it's his destiny to sniff out all the Dragonballs he can (which, as everyone knows, will grant the ball-handler a wish when collected together), stop Piccolo from destroying the world and do it all in 90 minutes so the kids can make it home in time for Spongebob and the rest of the paying audience can drown their sorrow in a bottle of cheap whiskey while lighting their Dragon Ball manga collections on fire in front of the 20th Century Fox offices.

Then Bulma (sample dialogue: “I'm Bulma Briefs!”) shows up out of nowhere with a Dragonball detector and she and Goku become buddies, teaming up to stop Piccolo and to find Master Roshi (sample dialogue: “Punk, prepare for your clock is going to be cleaned!”), the only person who knows Goku's destiny and can train him not only to battle Piccolo, but to also assist in their quest to gently cup as many Dragonballs as possible. Along the way they run into obnoxious bandit Yamcha (sample dialogue: “Cheese and rice, my nads got scorched!”) who serves no purpose other than to deliver unfunny punchlines and become Bulma's love interest 12 hours after meeting her. There's also Piccolo's unnamed shapeshifting henchwoman, who sometimes shows up long enough to get punched, show off her terrible wig and lose a fight. After about an hour and 15 minutes Piccolo has caressed all 7 Dragonballs (and has had maybe 5 minutes of screentime total and around 4 or 5 lines, not one of which really offers a good solid reason why exactly he wants to destroy the planet), and Goku, now conveniently dressed in his trademark orange Gi and silly ribbed boots, which he managed to change into while his hovering transport jeep was exploding, Bulma, Yamcha and Roshi all show up for the big final battle. Goku turns into an embarrassing CG monkey thing for a while, there's a lot of yelling and whatnot, and then it's over. They hint at a sequel (actual dialogue: "where are the Dragonballs?" "Looks like they're gone again!" "Well, we better go find them!"), and that's about it.

There's a lot wrong with Dragonball: Evolution, but the one huge thing that overrides nearly everything else is that the script is an absolute, unmitigated disaster. It's clear that a metric ton of material was hacked out, but this thing would need another 30 minutes rise from “unforgivably retarded” to “only mostly retarded”. If you walked into this movie cold – with only a cursory knowledge of who Goku is or what the original story is about – your jaw will be agape at what unbelievable horsecrap is unfolding before you. They explain virtually nothing. There is little to no character motivation. Things just sort of happen – it's not difficult to keep up with (once you realize the movie has no internal logic at all and is just checking off character names and plot points) it's just that so little of it feels connected or sensible at all. Stuff happens, but who cares? Earth is basically unrecognizable and looks like the first 5 minutes or so of Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, the distant future circa 1992. None of the characters are compelling or interesting at all and they're all caught up in this big nonsense story that feels like it was written in crayon. It'd probably be easy to excuse this trash pile of a script by claiming that the original material was pretty zany too, but while Dragon Ball may have been silly and overblown, it wasn't insultingly stupid and senseless. You can't even use the ‘it's a live-action cartoon!’ excuse – compared to Dragonball: Evolution, your average episode of Chowder or Batman: The Brave and the Bold are shining examples of depth and meaning on par with the work of Dostoyevsky. Kids aren't dumb enough to fall for this.

In terms of production values, nothing there works either. The special effects are all Sci-Fi Original Movie-level quality, and the costume design is questionable to say the least. Hell, even the makeup sucks – Bulma has cosmetics plastered on like a whore in a Ratt video, all heavy rouge and electric blue eyeliner, her hair teased and highlighted to where she'd look much more comfortable writhing around on the hood of a 1987 TransAm than playing a “badass” genius scientist. The film's climactic moment – spoiler alert, it's the Kamehameha – is so outrageously goofy looking and badly executed that you will laugh out loud. It is perhaps the most enjoyable moment in the film, unintentionally so.

It's hard to blame the actors for their across-the-board mediocre performances when they're dealing with material this mind-boggling, but they can't be let off the hook either. Justin Chatwin occasionally delivers his ridiculous dialogue with some measure of quality but most of the film requires him to grimace and flex his neck muscles, which he apparently isn't quite capable of doing in a convincing way; imagine someone doing a bad job at faking "desperate, painful constipation" and you're about there. Emily Rossum spits her lines out like she just can't wait to get rid of them, and nobody can blame her for that, but she's less engaging than your average Power Rangers guest star. The guy playing Yamcha – Joon Park – is just not very good at this. His delivery is godawful, like the guy who's stuck playing the tired ‘surfer dude’ stereotype character in a Japanese roleplaying game from 1997, back when they'd hire convenience store employees and hobos from the local YMCA to do the voiceover work. Chow Yun-Fat does what he can, but even he stumbles over this stuff; the role requires him to behave like a cartoon character and it just comes across as trying way, way too hard.

In the end, it all boils down to one thing: this movie appeals to nobody. It was made for no one. People who aren't familiar with the Dragon Ball story at all will be so flabbergasted by what's happening that they will likely tell everyone they know that it's one of the worst movies they've ever seen. Fans who do know what the general story is will be furious at just how unbelievably badly they screwed this entire thing up. Kids are used to better writing than this in their weekday afternoon cartoons (although you may run into a kid who has never actually seen a movie before, and they might dig it until you show them another movie). It's a clunky, tiresome, badly executed, horribly written pile of shame that deserves no quarter.

In short, it's as bad as the fans said it would be.

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