Madagascar

How many ways can you tell a fart joke? Dreamworks Animation continues to ponder the question that has puzzled humanity with Madagascar much like they did with their other computer animated films Shrek, Shrek 2 and A Shark Tale.

The film centers on four friends from New York’s Central Park Zoo. Alex (voiced by Ben Stiller) is the star attraction with all kinds of merchandise ranging from snow globes to foam hands to alarm clocks. Marty (Chris Rock) is the second fiddle zebra, a sideshow to Alex. David Schwimmer voices Melman, a hypochondriac giraffe and Jada Pinkett Smith is Gloria, the motherly hippo to all the animal masculinity.

On his tenth birthday, Marty realizes there’s not much direction in his life at the zoo so he wishes he could somehow find his way to the wild rolling hills of Connecticut. Fate steps in and all four friends find themselves stranded on the African island of Madagascar where they are befriended by a pack of partying lemurs.

Madagascar is very light on plot, focusing instead on the quest for finding one’s way in life. It’s an ambitious idea but one that doesn’t work well in a kiddie-oriented animated film. Much of the film’s humor is aimed at the tykes with lots of slapstick falls and cute and cuddly animals bouncing around colorful locales.

And then there’s the toilet humor, a Dreamworks staple from the way history is playing itself out. I’ll admit a well-placed releasing of gas can work, but it’s tiresome as a fall back plan for whenever the actual story starts to cause the pace to lag. It’s good for a cheap cheer from a handful of kids but it doesn’t make for a timeless classic or even something that’ll be memorable in a couple of months.

Another Dreamworks practice that I’m not a fan of is using big-name actors to bloat the poster. In Madagascar it feels a lot like they had the idea for an animal movie, approached a bunch of actors and made up the characters from there. The result are characters who sound and act just like one might expect from Ben Stiller, Chris Rock and David Schwimmer. I mean, who could image Rock being any animal but a zebra? The racial jokes can write themselves with that combination. And Friends‘ Schwimmer as a lovable schmuck? Not a big stretch by any means. There’s little imagination in the main quartet of characters because we’ve seen them before in the actors’ previous movies. Memorable voice acting separates the human from the character and brings life to the screen. There are some great examples to be found. The noir-influenced penguins steal the show each and every time they appear. And I didn’t recognize a one of their voices. They fit naturally without the celebrity stigma.

As long as Dreamworks and Pixar are duking it out for CG Animated supremacy, the comparisons will follow. Pixar hasn’t made a poor film yet because they focus on telling a good story with good characters. Dreamworks seems to be relying on star power and opening weekend box office results. Pixar gets the results but their films will also be around for a long time to come. Dreamworks, on the other hand, may still be getting the box office but pretty soon their bubble is going to burst as they continue to follow the same formulas over and over again.

But let’s excuse it as scientific research. While I don’t have an exact number, the number of fart jokes is numerous. But the punch lines are all pretty much the same so it doesn’t matter much. Still, the folks making these films will continue to mine the gas until the wells run dry.