Madagascar

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Dishes up some very corny jokes, but the images have a brighter-than-life vivacity.

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.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

It could be more involving, but it's funny enough that you won't care.

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.

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.

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

Forget life lessons: I much prefer a lemur king doing the robot.

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.

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.

Premiere Peter Debruge

It's a brisk and lively getaway with genuine personality.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

Madagascar doesn't do much, except make you laugh. All hail such a minimalist approach.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

This slight and amusing 'toon is mostly a trip designed for the kiddie crowd to take in.

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.

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.

Time Richard Corliss

Savvy family entertainment.

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.

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.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Often feels like a cartoon that wishes it were live action.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Eventually, it had to happen: a computer-animated dud.

The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen

It's frustrating to see this wonderful-looking, laugh-out-loud funny survival tale fall short of its potential.

Variety Dennis Harvey

Pleasant, if mediocre family fare.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

Madagascar's relaxed density is a relief given the DreamWorks tendency to overbear, overblast, and overcaricaturize.

TV Guide Angel Cohn

Slickly animated and cleverly written.

Empire Ian Freer

Spirited, amiable, featherweight summer fun.

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.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

By and large it's formulaic and dull.

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."

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.

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.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

The whole thing feels throwaway, but some of the gags are funny.

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.

Chicago Tribune Allison Benedikt

The film never gets going. It's too slow and plodding for kids--even too obvious.

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.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Anemic.

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.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

The underwhelming, only fitfully amusing movie left me hungry for more.

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.