Sure, I have done movie reviews since February since I just got tired of it, but Penguins of Madagascar was such an improvement on the rewatch. I watched it in theaters in November, and was disappointed I had at the time. See original Review. I gave it a C minus when I watched it the first time, but it was such an improvement with the second time. Madagascar and Madagascar 2 aren't great movies. The first is good but had some really stupid moments and the second one is a joke. It's terrible. When I rewatch them, I'll probably over two. I didn't expect much from three- how could the circus entry be any good? But it was such a great movie. It had cool action scenes, a not stupid romance and an awesome Bryan Cranston voiced character. It's by far the best Madagascar and actually one of my favorite animated movies. Despite how terrible some moments were, there was one thing that was excellent in all three films- the penguins. A perfect group of characters each with a unique ability. It was definitely the characters to make a spinoff of.
The penguins of Madagascar is not a hilarious movie. Like most animated movies, it has a few funny moments, but most of the jokes are meant for kids. One animated movie that I found to be very funny was Frozen. I guess it was surprising since you may not expect that from a g-rated musical, but Josh Gad's Olaf delivers some very funny lines. Back to Penguins, there was one funny part that stood out to me. In fact- it's the part I remember being funny. I'm sure there were more funny parts, but I watched this on Netflix about two-three weeks and I can't remember. Anyway, the funny part was after John Malkovich's villain introduces himself- a cricket chirps. The penguins don't remember him and you hear the classic cricket chirping- but that's the funny part yet. The funny part was after the cricket chirping sound happened, a cricket in back of them stands up and says "sorry"- then proceeds to walk around upon realizing he lives the other way and announces that. Okay, this review has been quite dumb so far- let's get to the real review.
If you look up information about the movie before going to watch it- you already know one great thing about the movie- the cast. You have John Malkovich as the villain, Benedict Cumberbatch as one of the heroes, and Ken Jeong as another hero, just more minor. I think Cumberbatch killed the role, and Jeong was okay- but Malkovich went along with one of the more disappointing aspects of the film. That was his rather poor villain. I'll get to that later.
Most of penguins of Madagascar is pretty great. The first hour is a complete load of fun, with the awesome title characters shining in every moments and having cool action scenes. It also has an amazing score- which is kinda surprising because it's not the kind of movie that would have a great score, but at the same should be expected since Madagascar had an amazing score. So, the first hour (maybe 70 minutes) is a great, great film.
Unfortunately, the final battle is so awful that it brings the film down from great to just good. If you've seen the new fantastic four, the ending is kinda like that, but fortunately not quite that bad. Unfortunately, it's almost as bad. Back to the villain. The villain is super weird, his appearance is strange too, and he has terrible villain motives. He wants to kill all penguins because people liked the penguins better than him at the zoo. This is really stupid because it's not the penguins at all and if you had to punish someone it would the humans that put the penguins there. But whatever- most action movies don't have quality villains anyway. And that's not the worst part of the movie. It's the ridiculous villain defeat. It goes into some many stages of ridiculous and is completely unbelievable. First private escapes his cage, then he gets skipper and Kowalski out of rabid penguins state just by talking, and finally skipper saves the day by hitting a cheeto bag. It's quite stupid, even though the story led up to it, that private ending up saving the day. Instead they should have given him an equally important role in defeating the villain instead of being the one to do it himself.
So there you have. It's a very solid film that lots of fun, has strong lead characters, and other supporting heroes but a bad villain and a very disappointing finale. Don't worry- it gets better on the rewatch (hopefully).
Movie Rating: B-
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