Entertainment, Movies - Army Times

Muddled menagerie

Pity the poor animated filmmakers who don’t work for Pixar — forever aspiring, if not perspiring, to match that studio’s renowned brand of magic.

It’s not like Pixar has a super-secret formula. It’s just superlative visuals matched by creative storytelling that works on multiple levels for multiple age groups — fun-filled, user-friendly moral lessons for the kids and just-snarky-enough wit for the adults.

Many animated films score well on the visuals. But most fall short on the storytelling side. Exhibit A: the soft, distinctly unedgy “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa.”

Good news first: The sequel looks more impressive than the original, especially in IMAX format — rich, vibrant colors, expressive, detailed characters and astounding depth of field. Its tone is also less aggressively shrill than the original.

Bad news: Thematically, it’s a bit of a mess, with multiple story lines tripping over each other and diluting the overall impact for both children and grown-ups.

It starts promisingly, with an exciting prologue about how little Alex the lion (Ben Stiller) ended up in the Central Park Zoo.

The story then picks up after the events of the first film, with Alex and zoo pals Marty the zebra (Chris Rock), Melman the giraffe (David Schwimmer) and Gloria the hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith) looking to escape their forced exile on the island of Madagascar, living with a tribe of hyperwacky lemurs under delusionally pompous King Julien (Sacha Baron Cohen).

With help from the quirky and resourceful penguins led by “The Skipper” (Tom McGrath) — who caused the shipwreck that led to their stranding — the four plan to head back to New York in a refurbished 1940s prop plane.

But the rickety vehicle stays aloft only as far as Africa, where it crashes on the savannah. The zoo-raised passengers encounter their own kind for the first time — creatures up and down the food chain living near a bucolic watering hole, none seeming to have the least interest in eating each other.

This happens to be the very watering hole where Alex’s long-lost dad, Zuba (the late Bernie Mac), rules. And here’s where the story skids off the safari trail, becoming a limp rehash of “The Lion King.”

Alex must undergo a rite of passage to keep the community’s top spot in his family lest it fall to Zuba’s scheming rival, Makunga (Alec Baldwin), who as a villain pales next to Scar from “The Lion King,” though he does have better hair.

Subplots sprout. All the zebras in Marty’s herd look and sound just like him — yes, think 10,000 Chris Rocks all cracking wise — which sparks an identity crisis.

Gloria is wooed by hip, hunky hippo Moto Moto (will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas), much to the chagrin of Melman, who has long carried an interspecies love torch for his zaftig friend.

And in case that’s not enough, a band of tourists is lost in the jungle, led by Nana (Elisa Gabrielli), the little old lady from Yonkers with mad ninja skillz and even madder survival instincts.

It all becomes a cacophonous blur with surprisingly thin humor, either visual or verbal. “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa” will keep the kids engaged as long as it’s on screen, but most will forget it as soon as the snack-bar sugar rush wears off.

Then again, when you buy the DVD next year — and you know you will — you probably can fool them into thinking it’s completely new.

So it’s a win-win. Sort of.