I'll give the makers of the MADAGASCAR spinoff film THE PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR credit: they open their movie with one of the most unexpected and funniest moments I've had in a theater all year. In a film presumably geared toward younger audiences, the film begins with the acknowledgement that there have certainly been more than a couple documentaries made about the adorable flightless bird, including the one being made in this movie, narrated by none other than Werner Herzog in his typical, droll delivery and asking far deeper questions than any penguin doc has a right or reason. (In my heart of hearts, I wanted to hear Herzog repeat his "With 5,000 kilometers ahead of him, [the penguin is] heading towards certain death" line from his own doc Encounters at the End of the World. Alas.)
Instead, the filmmakers decided to go with something a bit more conventional in a film that focuses on the four penguin characters from the MADAGASCAR series—Skipper (voiced by Tom McGrath), Kowalski (Chris Miller), Private (Christopher Knights), and Rico (grunted by Conrad Vernon). PENGUINS gives the original films the ROSENCRANTZ & GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD treatment by showing us just how the penguins came together, how they split off from their flock to engage is their own adventures, and exactly what they were doing behind the scenes during the Madagascar movies when they weren't on screen. It's weirdly complex for a kids movie, but I'll never knock a film for being ambitious—only if the ambition doesn't pay off.
The sneaky penguins are pitted against Dr. Octavius Brine (voiced with just the right amount of crazy by John Malkovich), a villainous octopus who resents being pushed out as the star attraction at several zoos when penguins became all the rage. So he sets out to kidnap a huge number of penguins to do something to them to make them...less adorable. Sweeping in to save the day is a highly trained, fully armed animal fighting force called North Wind, led by a wolf named a Agent Classified (Benedict Cumberbatch) and accompanied by other wintery animals voiced by Ken Jeong, Peter Storemare and Annet Mahendru (as a seductive owl).
Director Eric Darnell (who co-directed all of the MADAGASCAR films as well as ANTZ) is joined on this film by Simon J. Smith (BEE MOVIE) to produce a lightweight but action-packed bit of silliness. There's nothing especially interesting about these penguins, especially when placed alongside the North Wind characters. Sure, they have a certain old-school comedy team appeal that certainly makes the childishness go down easier, but in a film meant to spotlight these side characters, we don't really get to know them any better. If you're going to splinter off, let us learn a little more about these supporting players and help us care about them a bit.
I certainly got a kick out of some of the jokes geared toward the older audience members (there are far more than I would have expected), but that's not really enough to carry a movie. I'm not really sure taking the penguins story back to its origins served any real purpose, and it makes me a little fearful of the upcoming Minions movie, which takes a similar approach. But THE PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR has just enough going for it to take the kids to it this weekend without fear of being bored out of your skull. There's a certain level of charm and entertainment value, and I liked the new characters in particular. That might be enough to convince you to go, but it's far from required viewing, even for MADAGASCAR fans.
