PatWahlquist
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Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (Blu-Ray)
Studio: DreamWorks Animation Home Video
Rated: PG (some mild crude humor)
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
HD Encoding: 1080p
HD Video Codec: MPEG4-AVC
Audio: English Dolby TrueHD 5.1; French, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles: English, French, Spanish; English SDH
Time: 89 minutes
Disc Format: 1 SS/DL Blu-Ray
Case Style: Keep case
Theatrical Release Date: 2008
Blu-Ray Release Date: February 6, 2009
The first Madagascar was such a hit that Dreamworks made the decision to squeeze some more life out of the franchise with this dull, Lion King riff that lacks the little creativity and laughs of the first one. This time, Alex the lion (voiced by Ben Stiller), Marty the zebra (voiced by Chris Rock), Melman the giraffe (voiced by David Schwimmer) and Gloria the hippo (voiced by Jada Pinkett Smith) are leaving the lemurs behind (well, except for a couple, including the great king, Julien, voiced by Sacha Baron Cohen, one of the couple bright spot in the picture) and heading back to NYC. However, those pesky penguins are in charge of the flight, so of course, the plane goes down stranding the group in Africa. They begin to assess their situation and find themselves on a wild animal reserve with other zebras, giraffes, hippos, and, shock, lions. Turns out, Alex was lost from this very same reserve as a wee cub and floated in a wood crate to New York City where he became the self professed “King of New York”. Alex quickly finds out this is his pride, and his dad is king, but the scheming Makunga (voiced by Alec Baldwin) finds a way to humiliate Alex and oust his papa.
The coincidences and call-backs to the first picture continue with the little old lady from the first film organizing a tribe of lost New Yorkers who were stranded by the penguins. The penguins are now using the monkey’s as muscle (due to their opposable thumbs) to rebuild the plane and get everyone out of there. The watering hole all the animals congregate around has gone dry, and Makunga must rely on his devious side to figure out how to get the water flowing again. Alex steps up to regain his pride and restore glory and respect to his family, but can his plans save everyone in the African reserve?
I clearly expected to see one of the animals beating a dead horse, but that may have been a little strong a metaphor in such a family friendly movie. In one of the bonus features, one of the directors cites his reasons for doing a sequel, which consisted of him wanting to see what else these characters were doing and “turning it up to 11”. I really don’t get what his purpose was, nor do I really get the point of having a second picture that gives us a weak and pretty much unfunny copy of the far superior Lion King. If we were going to “11”, we should have had a far more interesting and original story. It certainly should have been funnier, or at least as funny as the first (really, I’m not asking for much). Instead, the jokes fall flat, the sight gags are few and far between, and the situations don’t produce any emotion. There is a moment where Alex confronts a racial issue with Marty, but it winds up being more awkward when it is trying, desperately, to be funny. Gloria and her hippo-suitor, Moto Moto (voiced by Will.I.Am), are relegated to urban stereotypes that weren’t even that funny twenty years ago. The supporting characters of the first Madagascar, the penguins in particular, at least gave that story some comic relief, but here their antics are about as funny as the barren African plains. Cohen’s rap as lemur King Julien provided me with a couple chuckles, but for all the money that goes into these things, you’d think some laughs would “Move It! Move It!” out of my mouth.
Video:
Note: I am watching this title using a Marantz VP 11-S1 DLP projector, which has a native resolution of 1080p. I am using a Sony Playstation 3 Blu-Ray player while a Denon 3808CI does the switching and pass through of the video signal. I am utilizing the HDMI capabilities of each piece of equipment.
The picture is framed at 1.85:1, and it is encoded in MPEG4-AVC at 1080p. Much like every other CG animated feature on Blu-ray, this one looks great. The picture is absolutely pristine and clear with no dirt or noise in it. I noticed no compression artifacts, aliasing or edge enhancement. Color fidelity was excellent showing a wide array of colors in every scene. Since there are no cityscapes in this one, the picture really shines with the African landscape, the colors of the surroundings and the characters. The image shows good depth of field (which was lacking in the first Madagascar picture). Black levels are excellent showing good detail and depth.
Audio:
The 5.1 Dolby TrueHD soundtrack was attained by the HDMI connection of the PS3 to the Denon 3808CI.
I listened to the feature with the 5.1 Dolby TrueHD track engaged. The mix provides a good soundstage with most of the sound coming from the front channels. Voices and effects come through crystal clear as there is no hiss or distortion noted. The surrounds come up often adding to the realism of the jungle and other wild surroundings. LFE’s engage during the action and music scenes.
Bonus Material: all of these items are in HD unless otherwise noted.
Commentary with the filmmakers: Producers Mark Swift, Mireille Soria, writers/directors Tom McGrath and Eric Darnell talk about a lot of what is dealt with in the other docs. Nothing terribly interesting in this commentary and I’d suggest watching The Animators’ Corner which has various superimposed windows showing the participants of the commentary discussing aspects of the movie. There are clips of the scoring, the CG artists at work, storyboards, etc. There are also interviews with the actors discussing their characters. This livens up the usual commentary and serves as a more scene specific discussion. While you’re listening to the commentary or the main feature, you can turn on the Trivia Track to read behind-the-scenes fun facts about the production or the animals. It’s fairly basic information that has probably been covered on the other docs at some point.
Two standard EPK type features It’s a Family Affair: The Cast of Escape 2 Africa (9:13) and The Making of Escape 2 Africa (11:05) have the crew and actors discussing their roles in the picture and just how fun it is to make this type of movie as well as the particular as to why and how it was made. The “seen-it-a-million times” award goes to Crash Landing (3:40) where the crash landing sequence is broken down from storyboards to voice recording to CG and finally to the finished piece. We also have behind the scenes video of the animators acting out the sequence.
The bonus features then drift into pieces about Africa itself. Jambo Jambo: Swahili Speak teaches you several Swahili phrases with clips from the movie. African Adventure (7:18) shows the filmmakers trip to Africa for research for the movie. Their home movies are shown and how this translated to the story and the picture in general. The Bronx Zoo: Madagascar (8:17) has Jim Breheny, the director of the Bronx Zoo takes us on a tour of the Madagascar exhibit at the zoo. He shows off lemurs, crocodiles, cockroaches, mongoose and more.
More Penguins has two shorts featuring the penguins: Popcorn Panic (12:08) and Gone in a Flash (12.09). In the former, it’s the penguins vs. the lemurs to attain popcorn after the zoo keeper begins enforcing the “do not feed the animals” rule. In the latter, a tourist’s camera goes missing, but the lemurs find it and the King thinks poor Maurice is trapped in it after a picture is snapped. The penguins investigate. Madness ensues. There is also an Easter Egg here that takes you to a few more penguin clips.
Mad Music showcases videos for a number of songs in the movie, including “Move it, Move it!”, “Big and Chunky”, “She Loves Me”, “Travelling Song (Sing Along)”, and “Alex’s Dance-Off “ that has you do various moves along with Alex. The Dreamworks Animation Video Jukebox highlights videos from various Dreamworks Animation movies.
The Test Flight of Air Penguin Game has you using the remote to choose the most appropriate replacement part displayed on the cockpit dashboard. Slow and primitive by today’s gaming standards but the kiddies may enjoy it if you can break them away from their Wii’s!
Finally, there are Trailers for current and upcoming Dreamworks Animation titles, and a BD-Live (11:58) (SD) feature, of which there is currently only one item up, a documentary called “The Heart of a Lion”. This piece takes an inside look into Northern Tanzania’s Ngorongoro Crater’s lion prides.
Conclusions:
I will concede another thing I truly liked about the picture was Will.I.Am’s contribution to the soundtrack with some interesting and original songs and music. Beyond that, the movie is about as fun and interesting as a plain white sheet of paper. Visually, the picture is a beauty, and the Blu-ray really showcases the CG work that went into the picture.
