"The film ends with an obvious bid for a sequel, and why not? Madagascar and its charming critters deserve an encore." Tom Keogh SEATTLE TIMES "I have said it a million times, but it is so true. Talking animals are funny!" Willie Waffle WAFFLEMOVIES.COM "Brilliantly written, animated and performed, it not only bridges the child-adult divide, but also makes its kid-friendly humor smart in its own way." Bruce Westbrook HOUSTON CHRONICLE "I really enjoyed Madagascar and the way it operates on many levels. The hilarious innuendos of Ali G’s King of the Limas will strike a chord with adults whilst keeping the children thoroughly entertained." Jaimie Leonarder SBS MOVIE SHOW "Madagascar will unite parents and their tykes with laughter" Christian Toto WASHINGTON TIMES "A destination you should add to your summer moviegoing itinerary...makes for an enjoyable trip." Frank Swietek ONE GUY'S OPINION

"The songs are all familiar ones, and are wittily used, which is another bonus. MADAGASCAR may not be the best of the recent crop of animated features, but it’s very easy to enjoy." David Stratton ABC AT THE MOVIES "Hip. hilarious fantasy adventure - a fun-filled good time for you, and the kid in you." Susan Granger MODAMAG.COM "A delight. Co-writers and -directors McGrath and Eric Darnell, along with their entire team, have done a terrific job with their sweet and whimsical story." Paul Clinton CNN "This endearing character piece offers animal high jinks for youngsters, plus pop culture humor and lushly composed animation for adults." Angel Cohn TV GUIDE'S MOVIE GUIDE "A funny and inventive feature-length animation about four African animals from Central Park Zoo who become marooned on the island of Madagascar. What I liked was that the movie managed to be truthful without being brutal. The fear factor (for little ones) is minor, and they should still be entranced by all the colour and movement." Paul Byrnes SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

The Inside Story

"What a wonderful movie this is, so full of the funny, the charming and the bizarre, so clever and eager to take advantage of the possibilities of CGI animation." Eugene Novikov FILM BLATHER

From "Shrek" to "Shark Tale" and now Dreamworks latest animated cartoon adventure "Madagascar" is set to delight, intrigue and enchant millions of cinemagoers [young and old] all over the world. It doesn't matter what your age is, put "Madagsacar" on your 'I'd be an idiot to miss this', movie list. Its another example of how Dreamworks has tapped into a market that craves fun, adventure, large as life creatures and entertainment that spans generations of cinemagoers. The big thing most will appreciate is that 'look' and 'feel' that mirrors the colorful 2D cartoons Disney is still pumping out much to the dismay of many critics. Add to that Dreamworks ability to then create animated characters that are so lifelike you'd swear they were real and you have a format that is a real winner. "Our influences were some of the best of classic animation going back to the 1930s and '40s, where a lot of the comedy was derived from the movement and the animation of the characters," says Tom McGrath who co-directs the film with Eric Darnell. "We knew this film had to have that kind of comedy. It needed to be broad; it needed to be slapstick." And McGrath is right on the mark because the first impression one gets while watching "Madagascar" is that it's certainly boisterous. Some may see interpret this to mean 'over the top' but that would be a big mistake, for everything about this production appears to be measured and no, they aren't based on any well known Zoo creatures. "Our characters are very stylized and not based on reality, so we could have a lot of fun with how they looked and how they moved," Co-Director Eric Darnell revealled. "They are very 2D inspired, but created in the 3D world of the computer. It gave us a lot of license because this is clearly a cartoon." Getting those characters to the screen would require a lot of ingenuity on the part of the team at PDI/DreamWorks. "In the past, the amount of squash and stretch you could get in the computer was very limited, so one of the biggest technical challenges we faced was getting the kind of broad comedy we wanted," McGrath attests. "The people at PDI/DreamWorks created a system that took it to the next level, where the animators could push and pull and stretch objects way out without breaking them." So how do they come up with all this new technolgy? "We don’t have 200 ‘mad scientists’ trying to invent gizmos that we then have to figure out how to use. It’s the reverse of that. We come up with the story knowing we’re going to need a lot of special tools to bring it to life, and that’s what those 200 mad scientists go off to do," DreamWorks Animation SKG CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg says with a laugh. "Ultimately, it’s all about telling a great story." And I am sure, as more and more people go to see "Madagascar" they will come to the realization very quickly, that this story of four Zoo animal who are close friends and who end up in 'the wild' is indeed great storytelling. Eric Darnell says "It’s a classic fish-out-of-water premise, and so many fun ideas spring from it. You just describe that basic idea and everybody gets it. That’s always what you want, especially with an animated film—an idea you can say in one sentence and people’s eyes light up. If you see people’s eyes light up, you know you’re on to something." The writers original theme for the story was to have the animals shipped off to Africa. During this voyage the crates would be washed overboard when the ship encountered a huge storm. The writers came to the conclussion that the theme had been overused in the past. It was here that four renegade Penguins became the catalyst for the crates going overboard and the animals ending up on the island of Madagascar. Here's a little trivia. Eric Darnell and Mireille Soria had previously been working on an animated project starring four Penguins. The project "a spoof based on the Beatles "A Hard Day’s Night" and it was called "Rockumentary". The project was shelved but "Madagascar" saw the four rascally little creatures get a starring role. Now they would provide the means for the crated animals going overboard. McGrath revealled, "Why are penguins going to Africa?’ We thought it would be really funny if the penguins didn’t want to go to Africa. They’re penguins; they want to go to Antarctica. They break out of their crate, take over the ship, and send it into a hairpin turn that throws the crates overboard. We had a lot of fun developing the penguins into a kind of POW unit breaking out of captivity." The obvious question to ask here is, why didn't they send them to Africa instead of Madagascar? "We needed to find a place that was the polar opposite of Manhattan," says Darnell. "The leads in our film are African animals, but everybody’s seen mainland Africa on the screen, and it doesn’t feel quite as exotic as what we were going for. Madagascar is an island off the coast of Africa that is completely unique, with plants and animals that are unlike anything else in the world. We especially loved the lemurs, which are only found on Madagascar. It is a fantastical place that gave us a lot of freedom to play and to create just the right sort of wild jungle for our heroes to land in." One of those lemurs is voiced by one very funny man. Does the name Sacha Baron Cohen ring any bells? Wel, how about Ali G? And gee, Sacha does a terrific job even performing one of the songs on the "Madagascar" soundtrack, "I Like To Move It". The observant viewers in the audience will soon discover that there are some wonderful threads underlying the story of "Madagascar". The most important thread woven throughout the fabric of "Madagascar" is one of true friendship. That friendship is most evident between Marty the Zebra and Alex the Lion. "The heart of the story is the relationship between Alex and Marty, who have no idea what their true natures are because they grew up in a civilized environment," says Tom McGrath. "Once they are taken from that environment and put back in the wild, their natural instincts start to emerge. That’s when their friendship is put to the test." And that's why parents the film may require a little parental guidance. The OFLC which reviews all films prior to their release rates "Madagascar" PG. Why? Because Alex the Lion has led a very pampered life as the star attraction at the New York Zoo where "There’s fans, there’s food, there’s pampering," says actor Ben Stiller who provides the voice for Alex the Lion. "What more could you want? He gets his steaks served up to him, but he thinks steak is just steak; it just exists—cut, prepared and seasoned just right. He never in a million years would think that his friends could be the food he eats. But once he gets out in the real world, his instincts start to take over, which is scary because it happens to be his best friend that he’s suddenly dreaming about eating." But don't go getting too panic stricken parents, for "Madagascar" is after all a story of friendships and just as friendships are sometimes tested in the human jungle. the animals friendships are tested once they are out in 'the wild'. Actor Chris Rock who voices Marty explains When they get to Madagascar, they all experience a culture shock. They encounter a lot of obstacles they couldn’t have anticipated…like finding out that that hunting thing is not for them. But you never know who your friends are until things go wrong. It’s easy to be friends when things are going great, but when it all falls down, that’s when you’re gonna see who’s really there for you." Casting About "MADAGASCAR" stars .......
Ben Stiller ["Zoolander", "Starsky & Hutch", "Dodgeball", "Meet the Parents" and "Meet The Fockers"]; Grammy Award Award winner Chris Rock ["Nurse Betty", "Lethal Weapon 4", "Head Of State" and "The Longest Yard"]; David Schwimmer ["Six Days, Seven Nights", "Hotel", "Kissing a Fool" and "The Pallbearer"]; Jada Pinkett Smith ["Menace II Society", "Bamboozled", "Ali", "The Matrix I, II & III", "The Nutty Professor" and "Collateral"]; Richard Pryor Comic of the Year Award winner and four times NAACP Image Award winner Cedric the Entertainer ["Barbershop", "Barbershop 2: Back in Business", "Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events" and "Be Cool"]; Tom McGrath ["Herd"]; Christopher Knights ["Shrek" and "Shrek 2"]; Chris Miller ["The Thing What Lurked in the Tub", "Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas", "Shrek" and "Shrek 2"]; Andy Richter ["Dr T and the Women", "Dr. Dolittle 2", "My Boss’s Daughter" and "Elf"]; Conrad Vernon ["Herd", "Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas", "Shrek" and "Shrek 2"] and Sacha Baron Cohen ["Jack and Jeremy's Police 4", "The Jolly Boys' Last Stand", "The Best of Borat" and "Ali G Indahouse"] as King Julian the Lemur. Crew Bytes "MADAGASCAR" was .......
directed by Eric Darnell ["Antz"] and Tom McGrath ["How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and "Cats & Dogs"]; written by British Comedy Award and Premier Ondas Award winner Mark Burton [UK TV'S "Jack Dee’s Happy Hour", "Never Mind the Buzzcocks", "The Peter Principle" and "Spitting Image"] Billy Frolick ["It Is What It Is", "The Witless Wisdom of Horace Dump", "The Philistine Prophecy" and "The Five People You Meet in Hell"] Eric Darnell ["Madagascar"] and Tom McGrath ["Madagascar"]; production design Kendal Cronkhite B.F.A ["James and the Giant Peach", "Antz" and "The Nightmare Before Christmas"]; art direction by Shannon Jeffries B.F.A ["Antz" and "Shrek 2"]; edited by Mark A Hester ["Oliver & Company", "The Little Mermaid", "The Rescuers Down Under", "Aladdin" and "Home on the Range"] and H Lee Peterson ["Dinosaur", "Pocahontas", "Aladdin" and "The Prince and the Pauper"]; original music by Academy Award® and Golden Globe Award winner Hans Zimmer ["My Beautiful Launderette", "As Good As It Gets", "Black Hawk Down", "Matchstick Men", "Spanglish" and "The Ring 2"] produced by Teresa Cheng ["Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron" and "Madagascar] and Mireille Soria ["The Mighty Ducks", "Ever After" and "Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas"]. What It's All About

"Madagascar is solid family entertainment - not the best or most groundbreaking of the genre, but certainly an enjoyable movie that is worth catching." ... Mike McGranaghan AISLE SEAT

It is Marty the Zebra's tenth birthday and his very best friends at the New York Zoo, Gloria the Hippo, Melman the Giraffe and the Zoo's star attraction Alex the Lion are helping him celebrate. Now Marty isn't all that happy. He wants more in his life than being an exhibit in a Zoo. You see he's heard about 'the wild'. Marty doesn't know what 'the wild' is or if it really exists but it must be better than spending all his life on display in a Zoo. His desire to be free is heightened when he interrupts the Zoo's Penguins who are burrowing their way to freedom. Marty decides that it's time he too made a move. When his best friends discover Marty has escaped from the Zoo, they go searching for him. Their actions cause chaos and terror. After the four have been captured, the Zoo decides to ship the four off to Africa. But thanks to the four penguins, who hijack the ship, the friends end up in Madagascar. Welcome to the wild guys, but watch out. After all, its a jungle out there. The Verdict "While it will be hard for many not to make comparisons with both "Shrek" and "Shark Tale", Dreamworks latest animated adventure should not be confused with either of their previous productions. "Madagascar" is a delight for young and old. Colorful, witty, imaginatively voiced by its cast, "Madagascar" is sure to bring out the little kid in the 'oldies' while producing squeals of delight from the little ones. Once again those talented people from Dreamworks have created a delightful experience that isn't limited to just the families with kids. Very Recommended." The Voice Cast

Ben Stiller Chris Rock David Schwimmer Jada Pinkett Smith Sacha Baron Cohen Cedric the Entertainer Tom McGrath Christopher Knights Chris Miller Andy Richter Conrad Vernon

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Alex the Lion Marty the Zebra Melman the Giraffe Gloria the Hippo King Julian the Lemur Maurice the Lemur Skipper the Penguin Private the Penguin Kowalski the Penguin Mort the Mouse Lemur Mason the Chimpanzee

The Crew Directed by Eric Darnell & Tom McGrath Written by Mark Burton/Billy Frolick/Eric Darnell/Tom McGrath Produced by Teresa Cheng & Mireille Soria Original Music by Hans Zimmer Non-Original Music by Erick Morillo Film Editing by Mark A Hester & H Lee Peterson Art Direction by Kendal Cronkhite Run Time 86 minutes Rated PG [AUST] Copyright ©2005 - DreamWorks Animation LLC and DreamWorks LLC - All Rights Reserved Copyright Protected © 2005 - The Movie Pages & Impact Internet Services - All Rights Reserved