In a sentenceFour penguins, one octopus, every pun in the building, and Werner Herzog pushing wildlife off a cliff for a better shot
Antarctica. A documentary crew narrated by Werner Herzog is filming a line of penguins marching across the ice. Three break ranks: Skipper (Tom McGrath), Kowalski (Chris Miller) and Rico (Conrad Vernon) chase a runaway egg, which hatches into Private (Christopher Knights). Years later, on Private’s birthday, Skipper leads a raid on Fort Knox to liberate a bag of Cheezy Dibbles from a vending machine. The machine is a trap, and the four are kidnapped by Dave (John Malkovich), an octopus who spent years in zoo tanks being ignored while visitors cooed at the penguins next door. The penguins escape through Venice by gondola and are scooped up by the North Wind, an animal rescue agency run by a wolf called Classified (Benedict Cumberbatch), who wants them out of his way.
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A fast, loud, pun-heavy spin-off that lands a dozen good jokes in its first half hour and then keeps shouting for an hour more. John Malkovich’s bitter octopus is worth hearing; the rest will tire anyone over ten long before it tires the children.
The penguins were the best thing in the Madagascar films, four birds with a chain of command and no plan, wheeled on for a minute at a time to steal a scene and wheeled off again. Penguins of Madagascar gives them the whole film. Directors Simon J. Smith and Eric Darnell, working from a script by John Aboud, Brandon Sawyer and Michael Colton, have built a spy spoof around them: a villain, a gadget, a global itinerary, a rival agency. It is a joke machine that runs at one speed for 92 minutes, and the speed is flat out. For half an hour that is a pleasure. After that it is a test.
The opening is the best thing in it. Antarctica, a line of penguins marching across the ice, and a documentary narrator with the voice of Werner Herzog explaining in that flat, mournful German that their lives are drab and pointless and that his crew will now make them more dramatic by shoving a few off a ledge. We laughed out loud, and so did the children around us, who had no idea who was speaking and did not need to. Three birds break ranks to chase an egg, the egg hatches into Private, and in five minutes the film has set up its heroes, its tone and its one real idea, which is that Private is the cute one and would rather not be.
From there it is a chase. A break-in at Fort Knox for a bag of Cheezy Dibbles, a kidnapping by vending machine, Venice, a gondola pursuit through the canals that is the one set piece where the animators get to stage something rather than just detonate it. Nick Kenway cuts it all short and fast; nothing stays on screen long enough to be examined, which suits the jokes and does the story no favours. Lorne Balfe’s score is spy-film brass, stabs and bongos, played straight, and it is the funnier for not winking.
John Malkovich is the reason to stay. Dave is an octopus who spent years in zoo tanks being ignored while crowds cooed at the penguins next door, and Malkovich plays him as a wounded aesthete, every line delivered with the patience of someone who has rehearsed his grievance for a decade. He has a running gag in which orders to his henchmen double as actors’ names (“Nicolas, cage them”), and the first three are good. The script does it perhaps twenty times. Benedict Cumberbatch’s Classified, a wolf who runs the North Wind rescue agency, is clipped and pleased with himself and can say the word penguins as though it were a stain. The rest of his team, Ken Jeong’s seal, Annet Mahendru’s owl and Peter Stormare’s bear, are each one joke and get it once.
Here is where it went wrong for us. Somewhere past the hour we noticed we had stopped laughing and were simply being shouted at. The film has one speed. Every scene is a chase or an explosion or a chase ending in an explosion, and Skipper is barking orders over all of it in Tom McGrath’s drill-sergeant growl, which is funny a minute at a time and wearing at ninety. When the script finally stops to let Private be taken seriously by his friends, it does so with a hush and a swell that the preceding hour has done nothing to earn, and we felt we were being asked to care by a film that had not, until then, pretended to.
The Madagascar films understood the penguins as seasoning. This is a plate of seasoning. Against the better animated spy spoofs it is thin: there is no world under the jokes, no sense of where anyone lives or what anything costs them, and the plot, which involves a serum and a ray gun, is a thing to hang gags on and nothing more.
Children under ten will like it a great deal, and it is a U, so there is nothing in it to flinch at beyond the volume. Adults get Herzog, Malkovich and a gondola. That is a decent return on 92 minutes, and not quite enough to send you out for it.
Most critics agree the jokes arrive faster than anyone can count, and the praise clusters on the voice cast. John Malkovich’s octopus villain is named again and again as the highlight, with Benedict Cumberbatch close behind, and individual gags are picked out, from the opening sequence to a gondola chase through Venice. Even the lukewarm notices concede the penguins steal their scenes and that the wordplay lands often enough to keep children and parents amused.
The split is wide. Reservations cluster on story, or the absence of one: the plot is thin, the chases and explosions pile up until they exhaust rather than exhilarate, and the octopus-name puns outstay their welcome. The American trade press is harshest, with Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline all finding it dull or frantic and The Wrap calling it noisy and unfunny. The British papers are warmer, and The Guardian stands furthest out, calling it the best of the series.
Bradshaw calls the film exhilarating, hilarious and the best of the Madagascar series. He particularly praises its supercharged script and abundance of great lines.
Read the full review →Ebiri finds the film’s relentless, silly humor successful, despite its loose story and lack of emotional resonance. He singles out its persistent wordplay and throw-everything-at-the-wall comic energy.
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Read the full review →Cabin finds the film an entertaining but fleeting romp, with thin storytelling keeping it only somewhat above average. He praises its plentiful, well-timed jokes and wordplay, especially the gag involving Shanghai and Dublin.
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MadagascarWhere the penguins first stole a film from its stars, in sensible doses.
Chicken RunA poultry prison break from Aardman with better jokes per minute and a plot.
ZootropolisAn animal caper with an actual city underneath the gags and a case worth solving.
Ernest & CelestineA bear, a mouse and watercolours; the quiet one for after the children have calmed down.
Spy · not reviewed yetThe same spy-spoof joke, live action, aimed squarely at the adults on the sofa.
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