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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

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69
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54
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Sixty Six
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Slumdog Millionaire
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Special
79
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67
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82
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83
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43
Tru Loved
83
U2 3D
59
We Are Wizards
55
What Just Happened?
89
Man on Wire
85
Slumdog Millionaire
84
Momma's Man
84
Christmas Tale, A
84
Happy-Go-Lucky
83
Trouble the Water
83
U2 3D
82
Tell No One
82
Rachel Getting Married
82
Frozen River
82
Let the Right One In
81
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
79
Stranded: I Have Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains
78
I've Loved You So Long
77
Pray the Devil Back to Hell
76
Betrayal - Nerakhoon, The
75
Pool, The
73
Girl Cut in Two, A
73
Frost/Nixon
72
I Served the King of England
70
I.O.U.S. A
69
Ashes of Time Redux
69
Fear(s) of the Dark
68
August Evening
68
Hunger
67
Black Balloon, The
67
Synecdoche, New York
64
Appaloosa
63
JCVD
63
Eden
63
Changeling
62
Duchess, The
59
We Are Wizards
57
Special
57
Sixty Six
56
Religulous
55
Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The
55
What Just Happened?
54
Battle in Seattle
54
Good Dick
53
RocknRolla
51
Morning Light
50
Breakfast with Scot
47
How About You
47
Choke
46
Dukes, The
43
Tru Loved
43
Gardens of the Night
41
Cthulhu
40
Igor
40
Other End of the Line, The
34
My Name Is Bruce
34
Otto; or Up with Dead People
32
Repo! The Genetic Opera
31
Hounddog
30
Guitar, The
28
Fireproof
27
Lake City
26
House of the Sleeping Beauties
26
Filth and Wisdom
xx
Dostana
xx
Let Them Chirp Awhile
xx
Local Color
xx
Nobel Son
xx
Extreme Movie
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Madagascar
DreamWorks Distribution LLC
FILM:
GAMES:
MPAA RATING: PG for mild language, crude humor and some thematic elements
Starring
Ben Stiller,
Chris Rock,
David Schwimmer,
Jada Pinkett Smith,
Sacha Baron Cohen,
Cedric the Entertainer,
Christopher Knights,
and
Andy Richter
When a group of animals from New York's Central Park Zoo wash ashore on the exotic island of Madagascar, they must figure out how to survive in the wild and discover the true meaning of the phrase "It's a jungle out there." (DreamWorks)
| GENRE(S): |
Adventure
|
Animation
|
Comedy
|
Family/Kids
|
Fantasy
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Mark Burton
Billy Frolick
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Eric Darnell
Tom McGrath
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: November 15, 2005
Video: November 15, 2005
Theatrical: May 27, 2005
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
80 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
91
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
Dishes up some very corny jokes, but the images have a brighter-than-life vivacity.

88
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
The animals' personalities have been carefully calibrated: They have sufficient edge to amuse us as characters, yet they're cuddly enough to market as plush toys or action figures.

83
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Sean Axmaker
It could be more involving, but it's funny enough that you won't care.

80
Washington Post
Ann Hornaday
Despite Madagascar's formulaic tendencies, it's a formula that works, so parents are urged to sit back, relax and enjoy -- the kids surely will.

80
Dallas Observer
Robert Wilonsky
It's bright and spry, giggly and bouncy, but also cuddly with occasional touches of cruelty--a movie in which best friends, when let loose in the wild, suddenly realize one's a little higher on the food chain.

78
Austin Chronicle
Kimberley Jones
Forget life lessons: I much prefer a lemur king doing the robot.

75
USA Today
Claudia Puig
The thin story, which sometimes feels like a series of one-liners strung together, is wisely kept short. But the gags are funny and the characters endearing.

75
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
Madagascar isn't deep and would have no business being deep. But that it keeps one foot in reality is enough to keep us guessing.

75
Premiere
Peter Debruge
It's a brisk and lively getaway with genuine personality.

75
Baltimore Sun
Chris Kaltenbach
Madagascar doesn't do much, except make you laugh. All hail such a minimalist approach.

75
Philadelphia Inquirer
Steven Rea
This slight and amusing 'toon is mostly a trip designed for the kiddie crowd to take in.

70
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
Madagascar is a classical gas. It's a good-humored, pleasant confection that has all kinds of relaxed fun bringing computer-animated savvy to the old-fashioned world of Looney Tunes cartoons.

70
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Tasha Robinson
The tenor can be shrill, but there's no time to get bored. And on top of that, most of the gags actually work.

70
Time
Richard Corliss
Savvy family entertainment.

63
Boston Globe
Ty Burr
Antic, cute, scattershot, it's a remarkable-looking but terribly uncertain bit of CGI fluff, with its richest humor off to the sides of the action and a whole lot of average in the middle.

63
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
Madagascar is funny, especially at the beginning, and good-looking in a retro cartoon way, but in a world where the stakes have been raised by "Finding Nemo," "Shrek" and "The Incredibles," it's a throwback to a more conventional kind of animated entertainment. It'll be fun for the smaller kids, but there's not much crossover appeal for their parents.

63
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
Often feels like a cartoon that wishes it were live action.

63
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
Eventually, it had to happen: a computer-animated dud.

60
The Hollywood Reporter
Michael Rechtshaffen
It's frustrating to see this wonderful-looking, laugh-out-loud funny survival tale fall short of its potential.

60
Variety
Dennis Harvey
Pleasant, if mediocre family fare.

60
Village Voice
Michael Atkinson
Madagascar's relaxed density is a relief given the DreamWorks tendency to overbear, overblast, and overcaricaturize.

60
TV Guide
Angel Cohn
Slickly animated and cleverly written.

60
Empire
Ian Freer
Spirited, amiable, featherweight summer fun.

50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
Credit Madagascar with negotiating a hopeful truce in the ongoing battle between the computer and the animation. Judged merely by appearances, its look is a lovely compromise. Too bad everything else has been compromised right out of existence.

50
Portland Oregonian
Shawn Levy
By and large it's formulaic and dull.

50
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
More than a few will agree with the penguins, who netted the film a PG rating with the utterance, "Well, this sucks."

50
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
Less like "Shrek," meaning hilarious and heartfelt, and more like "Shark Tale," meaning manic and exhausting, Madagascar will keep kids distracted without transporting them to wonderland.

50
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
The plot really is basic, so the bafflement of the movie lies in its combination of visual riches and dramatic -- as well as thematic -- impoverishment.
50
Chicago Reader
Jonathan Rosenbaum
The whole thing feels throwaway, but some of the gags are funny.

50
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
Looks stunning, but it's an ill-conceived mess that plays like two movies awkwardly spliced together. In one movie, parents are asked to stand by while the kids are entertained with cute animal tricks and slapstick pratfalls. In the other, the kids will be hushed while the parents are treated to inside jokes.

50
Chicago Tribune
Allison Benedikt
The film never gets going. It's too slow and plodding for kids--even too obvious.

50
The New Yorker
David Denby
Often quite beautiful. But Madagascar, which was directed by Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath, is mismanaged pretty much from start to finish.

40
LA Weekly
Ella Taylor
Anemic.

40
The New York Times
Dana Stevens
Madagascar arouses no sense of wonder, except insofar as you wonder, as you watch it, how so much talent, technical skill and money could add up to so little.

30
Washington Post
Michael O'Sullivan
The underwhelming, only fitfully amusing movie left me hungry for more.

25
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
The animation is deft but the screenplay is stilted, the voice-performances are unimaginative, and the whole project is surprisingly clumsy in its efforts to please young and old alike. A major disappointment.


The average user rating for this movie is 6.1 (out of 10) based on 71 User Votes
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