Madagascar, 2005 ★★★★☆

We saw the latest animated flick Madagascar last night as part of the Memorial Day movie rituals. Thankfully, rest of the world was preoccupied with why Anakin turns Darth Vader letting us amble in the almost-empty theater for Madagascar. The movie revolves around four zoo animals; Alex the lion, Marty the zebra, Melvin the giraffe, and Gloria the hippo trying to break free from the Central Park Zoo to the wild. Interestingly enough, they tried to escape to Connecticut (their idea of wild) and took the same route as we did during our last week's trip to New York. They take the same Lexington subway and walk down Fifth Avenue to Grand Central.

Overall, the movie is extremely hilarious and voiceovers credits include Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, and Jada Pinkett-Smith. Although the friendship between Alex and Marty is kinda gayish (the movie makes fun of that fact too), it provides some extremely funny moments. However, the best characters are the penguins and the desi-accented Malagasy lemur king. As a side plot, the penguins hijack the ocean liner that is taking them to the wilds of Kenya. Check out the penguin hijack scene a la SWAT style; I was almost rolling on the floor laughing hard. The lemur king with his desi-style "I want to move it, move it" in a rave-like party, along with his side kick minister has some funny lines. The movie also explore the free but brutal nature of the wild and not-so-romantic feel of freedom under the allusions of Darwin's survival of the fittest. City folks simply cannot adapt to the call of the wild, even if they are animals.

I am starting to love the animated movies more than the real ones now.