 The greatest challenge to the supremacy of the Sith may be DreamWorks' animated Madagascar. "Fine for kids. I think even funnier for grown-ups. It's gonna be this summer's Shrek," commented Good Morning America's Joel Siegel. Ann Hornaday in the Washington Post agrees, remarking that the movie "continues a long, happy tradition of animated family movies, perfected every era or so by franchises like Rocky and Bullwinkle, Toy Story and, most recently, Shrek, that look like they were made for kids and sound like they were made for their parents." Lisa Kennedy in the Denver Post also assures parents: "Appropriate for the wee ones, this flick promises to please parents who will inevitably be in for repeat viewings." Philip Wuntch in the Dallas Morning News calls it "a jocular, boisterous lark." And Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times hails it as "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." Claudia Puig in USA Today has some reservations about the film, writing: "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." The film, however, has drawn at least an equal number of naysayers. A.O. Scott in the New York Times is among them, writing: "Madagascar spends all its imaginative resources on visual novelty while piecing its story together out of tired conventions and loud, obvious jokes." Similar observations are made by numerous critics. Ty Burr in the Boston Globe writes: "It's a remarkable-looking but terribly uncertain bit of CGI fluff." Likewise, Jack Mathews comments in the New York Daily News: "The latest computer-generated cartoon from the Shrek makers at DreamWorks looks stunning, but it's an ill-conceived mess." And Lou Lumenick in the New York Post offers this parental warning: "Very young children will likely enjoy the bright colors, slapstick comedy and talking animals that look like plush toys. But accompanying parents will be looking at their watches during a very slight story that seems like a three-minute TV cartoon stretched way beyond endurance, even at 86 minutes." The same sort of warning is issued by Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times: "It'll be fun for the smaller kids, but there's not much crossover appeal for their parents." |
