2008年第十五场电影——Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa

2008-12-01 22:58:45 　　来自: Chatelain
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa / 马达加斯加2的评论   

　　Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa.
　　IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0479952/
　　The story takes place shortly after the end of the first movie. Alex the Lion, Marty the zebra, Gloria the hippo and Melman the giraffe are leaving the island, with the help of the Penguins. After a “almost perfect” flight back to Manhattan Zoo, the group lands (of sorts) in the middle of the African wild. While there, Alex meets his long lost pride and all four are confronted with a dilemma: getting back to their roots, or to the comfort of stardom at the zoo.
　　In all honesty I was not a fan of the first Madagascar, with its hectic, sometimes nonsensical storytelling style. So it took a bit of convincing for me to go and see the sequel, especially nowadays with the deluge of full-feature CG movies in the halls. So, well, a bunch of positive web reviews, a relative lack of appealing movies in the pre-Christmas season, and, huh, the penguins finally got me in.
　　And after a bumpy ride at the start, partly due to me not quite getting the many in-jokes of the opening, as my memory of episode 1 was somewhat faded (mirroring the heroes’ take-off Madagascar island maybe), it was a generally enjoyable experience, and yes, I plan to end this sentence somewhere eventually. Let’s put it clear: this is a much better work than Madagascar 1. The story is simple but makes sense. Time is taken to flesh out sub-plots and more importantly the characters. As a result, all of them are easier to figure out and more lovable. Despite the narration’s slow down, jokes are still plentiful, and varied too. There’s some slapstick humor and some more subtle jokes that will entertain crowds of all ages and most backgrounds. The hardest part of the sequel probably was for the Penguins to live up to the expectation, as they were pretty much the only good thing about part 1. And yes, they do live up to it, which is quite a delightful surprise. Their role is pretty much unchanged, which is good too.
　　Technically this is an impressive production too, with many scenes involving hundreds of characters, beautifully rendered fur and sumptuous landscapes. The music is far from being as annoying as the teaser may suggest, with nice orchestral themes and enjoyable songs.
　　Of course, this is from the point of view of someone whose expectations were really low, so if you were a big fan of Madagascar 1, no warranty you’ll like this one. After all, this still remains a vaguely slapstick and kiddy comedy. This is no Ratatouille or Wall-E, nor it is as fresh as Kung Fu Panda. It is, however, a good movie that works towards establishing Dreamworks as the only serious competitor of Pixar on this market.
　　7/10.