Madagascar 2 Escape to Africa

The Story

This is the story of a bunch of escaped animals who have found their way to Madagascar with help from a group of penguins. It starts off with Alex the lion as a young cub being taught by his dad Zuba, the king of Africa to become a strong warrior but all Alex wants to do is play. Alex’s dad Zuba has a visit from another lion called Makunga hoping to take over the throne and challenges the king to a fight.

After the king and his rival have their scuffle Alex’s dad becomes the winner leaving Makunga feeling beaten and his pride being taken from him. While playing with a butterfly and Zumba not looking Alex is taken by some poachers having his dad hot on his tail but he soon loses his son as the truck drives off into the distance.

Years later back in Madagascar Alex and his friends are preparing to fly back to their home in New York after mending a crashed plane and King Julien of the lemurs, Alex’s new found friend decides that he would like to go with them too to see what it’s like to live in the city.

They fly off from Madagascar to New York but along the way the plane crashes in Africa causing Alex (Ben Stiller), Gloria (Jada Pinkett Smith), Melman (David Schwimmer), Marty (Chris Rock), Julien (Sacha Baron Cohen), some penguins and some chimps to get stuck with no way of getting home. After checking out their new surroundings they learn that they are not alone as they come across a whole new group of animals that are just like them.

After checking out the new landscape and meeting all the new animals Alex meets Zuba (Bernie Mac) and his wife Florrie (Sherri Shephard) who he discovers are his parents and that he had once as a child lived in Africa.

Now Makunga (Alec Baldwin), a little older and wiser befriends Zuba’s son Alex and tricks him into losing a coming of age fight with the strongest lion and so tells Zuba that he must now banish his son for losing but Zuba instead gives his power to Makunga because he cannot banish his son and then Makunga banishes Alex and his family. The penguins meanwhile have been stealing jeaps from tourits to make parts for an aeroplane that will take them out of the jungle leaving the tourists stranded and very pissed off.

So the tourists led by nana, an old lady and a past enemy of Alex, decide to build themselves a new home in the african safari and in doing so they dry up the watering hole leaving the animals in distress and thirsty. So Alex along with Marty decide to help the other animals and take it upon themselves to be the heroes but Alex gets captured leaving Marty to go back to Alex’s father for help.

There is also a romance between Gloria the hippo and Melman the giraffe that brews throughout the movie which is a very funny sub plot and a very disgruntled Marty who has identity problems because all the other Zebras seem to be exactly the same as he is and Melman wanting to throw himself into a volcano to save the animals as a sacrifice because he believes that he will soon die from a witch doctors disease.

What I liked about the movie

This is a very funny movie and better than the first Madagascar which both adults and their children should enjoy, the animation is better and with more animals we get introduced to more characters and a more involving storyline.

What I didn’t like

There wasn’t much I didn’t like except that the film was really more of the same which wasn’t a bad thing as I really enjoyed the first movie.

Would I recommend this

Yes I would recommend this for both adults and children to both watch it together with some popcorn and have a fun family get together in front of the tv and children should enjoy it with repeated viewing as there are so many jokes in the movie that you won’t see all that is going on the first time you see it.