Madagascar

Do you value civilisation?

MADAGASCAR Dreamworks Cert. U

This is a family cartoon with lots of fun, which carries the message that we ought to be thankful for civilised society and not knock it. In days of terrorism, that’s not a bad note to sound.

In New York’s Central Park Zoo we meet four characters. These are Alex the lion, Marty the zebra, Gloria the hippo and Melman the hypochondriac giraffe. Inspired by penguins who are actively seeking escape back to the Antartic, the animals wake up one night to find that the zebra, who always dreamed of being back in ‘the wild’, has gone. The other three set out to find him, and through various unhappy coincidences, including the intervention of well-meaning animal rights advocates, the four friends find themselves shipwrecked on the jungle shore of Madagascar.

Here things are not the idyllic paradise which was imagined. In particular, back in the wild, Alex the lion has to struggle with a desperate longing to devour his friends. The natural world is red in tooth and claw and there is irony as Louis Armstrong’s song ‘What a wonderful world’ provides the mood music as yet another cuddly little creature is gobbled up by a crocodile (all tastefully done of course).