Film Review - Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (PG)

Dir. Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath

Reviewed by Matt Adcock

It’s a jungle down in your local cinema this week as a crazy bunch of New York City's Central Park Zoo escapees are back on the lose. It’s been three years since a funny series misadventures saw Alex the lion (Ben Stiller), Marty the zebra (Chris Rock), Melman the giraffe (David Schwimmer) and Gloria the hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith) washed up on the isle of Madagascar. Also back is the loopy Julien XIII (Sacha Baron Cohen), self proclaimed king of the lemurs, who decides to accompany the heroes on an ill fated attempted flight back to the Big Apple. The first moral of this sequel story is to never fly ‘Penguin Air’ because although they manage to get airborne, it isn’t long before the plane crash-lands in an African animal reserve. And would you believe it, this happens to be the exact reserve from where Alex grew up… so it’s not long before he’s reunited with his dad Zuba (Bernie Mac) and his mum (Sherri Shepherd). But the happy reunion is cut short thanks to devious Makunga (Alec Baldwin) – Zuba’s brother who has obviously been watching the Lion King because he engineers a pitfall which could see Alex immediately banished from the pride.
There’s more trouble coming from hard as nails Grandma (Elisa Gabrielli), the elderly lady who beat the living daylights out of Alex when they met in the first film, who by coincidence is on an African safari and not happy to see the ‘naughty kitty’ again.
Other unresolved issues left from the first movie such as Melman’s slightly creepy infatuation with Gloria are also explored when she becomes the attention of affection from Moto Moto the male hippo stud of the watering hole.
The scene stealing penguins are the pick of the wild bunch again, led as before by Skipper (co-director Tom McGrath), they take to robbing the local tourists in order to secure parts with which to try to rebuild the plane – and employ a team of funny monkeys to do the labour (thanks to their having opposable thumbs).
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa is a fun if forgettable addition to the series, the quality cast, witty writing and occasionally impressive CGI artwork certainly make this a watchable all age treat. It’s no Shrek and won’t give Pixar animations any sleepless nights but there was enough here to keep my 8 year old son happy and I must confess to being pleasantly entertained too.

DARKMATTERS RATING SYSTEM (all ratings out of maximum 10 but '-' is bad whereas '+' is good):

Endorphin Stimulation: ööööööö (7)
+ Animal magic -ish

Tasty Action: öööööö (6)
+ slap that stick

Gratuitous Babeness: öööö (4)
+ Gloria is chunky

Mind Blight / Boredom: öööööö (6)
+ Even eight year olds sat through it

Comedic Value: ööööööö (7)
+ No wildlife joke left unused

Arbitrary final rating: öööööö (6)
Nice enough but won't be remembered

Liable to make you:
"book a safari"

DM Poster Quote:
"wildlife can be funny"

Film Review - Burn After Reading

Burn After Reading (15)

Dir. Joel and Ethan Coen

Reviewed by Matt Adcock

This is a highly classified review. So secret and sensitive is the following material that I advise you to ‘Burn After Reading’ – which may be problematic is reading this online... The report on the Coen brothers' latest cinematic experience crucially indicates the potential full-scale incompetence of non other than the CIA.

The first subject under investigation is CIA analyst Osborne Cox (John Malkovich), who quits his job after being sidelined – once his drinking problem is mentioned. He’s come back to his superior is however is typical of Coen brother sublimeness: “You're a Mormon. Compared to you we all have a drinking problem.”

The second subject is gym worker Linda (Frances McDormand), a lovelorn single who dreams of elective surgery to give her a better chance of finding Mr Right. She and dim co-worker Chad (Brad Pitt), stumble upon Cox’s memoirs on a disc and hatch an ill-fated blackmail scam.

Also in this tangled web is womanising wide boy Harry (George Clooney), who carries a big gun, works for the Treasury Department and is having a sordid affair with Cox's wife Katie (Tilda Swinton).

Things get rapidly out of hand with multiple path crosses, double crosses and much profanity backed up by some genuinely hilarious screwball comedy. This isn’t anything like the awesome gritty thrills of the Coen’s No Country for Old Men, Burn After Reading this is much more like a mix between their genius Big Lebowski and much-maligned Ladykillers. The result is uneven and veers from laugh out loud moments to mild bewilderment but overall it’s a film worth seeing as long as you’re not adverse to sporadic acts of violence.

Everyone in Burn After Reading seems to be having a real hoot putting this together and the sense of madcap fun is infectious. You just can’t help but get caught up in the maverick glee streaming from the screen – never more so than when CIA superiors (David Rasche and J.K. Simmons) try to make sense of what is being reported back to them about the whole muddled affair.

Which is summed up:

“So what did we learn from this?”

“Um... I don't know.”

“Report back to me when it makes sense!”



DARKMATTERS RATING SYSTEM (all ratings out of maximum 10 but '-' is bad whereas '+' is good):

Endorphin Stimulation: ööööööö (7)
+ Muddled plot takes a bit of keeping up with

Tasty Action: öööööö (6)
+ Some but only sparodic action

Gratuitous Babeness: ööööö (5)
+ Nothing to get steamed up about here

Mind Blight / Boredom: ööööö (5)
+ Screwballs bouncing left and right, try to keep up!

Comedic Value: öööööööö (8)
+ Some classic funnies in here and Pitt is hilarious

Arbitrary final rating: ööööööö (7)
Decent but not classic Coen comedy

Liable to make you:
"join a gym rather than the CIA"

DM Poster Quote:
“what just happened?"

End note:
Fans of Coen brothers comedies won’t have too long to wait for their next hit as A Serious Man, which will be a black comedy about a professor named Larry whose life unravels when his wife prepares to leave him.