Madagascar (2005 film)

Madagascar
Directed by	Eric Darnell Tom McGrath
Written by	Mark Burton Billy Frolick Eric Darnell Tom McGrath
Produced by	Teresa Cheng Mireille Soria
Starring	Ben Stiller Chris Rock David Schwimmer Jada Pinkett Smith Sacha Baron Cohen Cedric the Entertainer Andy Richter
Music by	Hans Zimmer
Distributed by	-USA- DreamWorks SKG -Non-USA Theatrical- United International Pictures -Non-USA DVD/Video- Universal Studios Home Entertainment
Release dates	May 27, 2005
Running time	83 min.
Country	USA
Language	English
Budget	$78,000,000

Template:Infobox movie certificates Madagascar is a computer-animated film produced by DreamWorks Animation, and released in movie theatres on May 272005. The film tells the story of four Central Park Zoo animals who have spent their lives in blissful captivity and are unexpectedly shipped back to Africa, getting shipwrecked on the island of Madagascar. The voices of Ben Stiller, Jada Pinkett Smith, Chris Rock and David Schwimmer are featured. Other voices include Andy Richter, Sacha Baron Cohen, and Cedric the Entertainer.

Madagascar was released on DVD on November 15, 2005, along with the short film, The Madagascar Penguins in a Christmas Caper.

Story

Alex the exuberant lion, Marty the starry-eyed zebra, Melman the hypochondriac giraffe and Gloria the "hip" hippo have a pampered life at the Central Park Zoo in New York City where they show off to the crowds and generally enjoy themselves. But Marty, celebrating his tenth birthday, longs to see the rest of the world and dreams of life in the wild. When he learns that the zoo's penguins are planning to escape he decides to follow suit, and return by morning. He has a vague notion that the wild can be found in Connecticut, so one night he sneaks out of the zoo and sets off on foot for Grand Central Terminal, where he hopes to take the Metro-North Railroad to Connecticut.

When the others find him gone, they head for Grand Central Station via the Subway to try and get him back. Arriving at Grand Central, they scare away most of the passengers (except for one determined old lady who leaves Alex on his toes) and catch Marty. They then manage to wreck the information desk before being shot with tranquilizer darts, along with the penguins and Mason and Phil, two chimpanzees who also escaped. Anti-zoo campaigners use the incident as evidence that animals should not be locked up. Because of this, all the animals soon find themselves in wooden crates aboard a cargo ship to Kenya.

The penguins succeed in taking over the ship and changing its course, following their initial plan of making their way to Antarctica. During the penguins' takeover, the crates containing Alex, Marty, Melman and Gloria fall overboard and they become separated on the ocean. Alex is washed ashore on a tropical beach. All night he is alone, but in the morning finds Melman stuck in his crate. Gloria and Marty soon wash ashore on the beach too. At first Melman assumes they are in San Diego, and Alex is upset that he will be outshown by Shamu, but when they discover a large tribe of lemurs led by King Julien XIII (voiced by Sacha Baron Cohen), they realize they are not in the United States anymore. They are actually in the wild, on the island of Madagascar.

Alex is furious with Marty, blaming him for the group's situation. He divides the island between them and forces Gloria and Melman to help him build a beacon-holding Statue of Liberty lookalike. His plan is to ignite the beacon, making them easy to notice for the boat, which Alex believes is coming to rescue them. However, Melman accidentally sets the whole statue on fire and destroys it. Gloria and Melman then join Marty, and Alex soon decides that he has been a jerk to his friend and joins the others to live on Madagascar.

Meanwhile, the penguins arrive in snowbound, windswept Antarctica and decide that "Well, this sucks..."

Julien hopes that the lemurs' new friends, whom he calls the "New York Giants", will scare away the fossa, enemies of the lemurs who have been preying on them. Despite the protests of his advisor Maurice (who thinks that Alex, as a carnivore, might be dangerous), Julien convinces the lemurs to welcome Marty and the others to their own little corner of paradise.

Unfortunately Alex, who has only ever eaten pre-cut steaks until now, is beginning to regain his natural predatory instincts. After losing control and attacking Marty, he is considered too dangerous to be a friend to his zoomates, or to any of the lemurs. Julien admits that Maurice has some sense in fearing Alex, and banishes the lion to the side of the island dominated by the fossa, just before everyone ends up running for their lives. Alex came to his senses for a time after a knock on the head by a coconut, and made the decision to leave his friends behind rather than do something he'd later regret. Marty, now completely aware of the predatory factor of the wild, is devastated at the realization that this is happening to him.

The penguins soon arrive in the ship. Realizing this may be a way back into New York, Marty goes to find Alex (against Gloria's advice). He ends up deep in fossa territory where he unsuccessfully tries to get Alex to come with him. The fossa eventually attack him, and soon he, Melman, Gloria and the penguins end up fighting for their lives, hopelessly outnumbered by the hungry creatures. Then Alex appears. At first he seems to have completely returned to his hunting instincts and claims Marty as his own prey. But this turns out to be a ruse: Alex has managed to overcome his predatory instincts. Using the fossa's natural fear of him, Alex drives the predators away from lemur territory forever. Needless to say, Julien made it clear that his original plan was a huge success.

Following a celebration dinner, at which Alex's hunger is finally sated by the discovery that he likes fish even better than steak, the friends return to the ship, leaving the penguins behind, and plan a round-the-world cruise, unaware that the ship is out of gas.

Characters

File:Madagascardvd.jpg

Clockwise from top left: Melman, Alex, Maurice, Skipper (or Rico), Kowalski, King Julian, Private, Rico (or Skipper), Mort, Marty and Gloria.

Alex

Main article: Alex (Madagascar)

Voiced by Ben Stiller

Alex is Marty's best friend, he is the most popular in the zoo, and he is nicknamed The King of New York. He is a lion. He is quite against staying in the wild and tries to get everyone to go back to the New York City zoo. He just loves eating steaks.

Marty

Main article: Marty (Madagascar)

Voiced by Chris Rock

As the protagonist of Madagascar, Marty the zebra (age 10) is the instigator behind everyone's adventure on Madagascar. He constantly dreams about the wild and wonders what life would be like beyond the zoo (unlike Alex who is more satisfied with how things are). One night, following the successful escape of the penguins, he leaves the zoo causing his friends to try and rescue him. When caught, animal rights activists have them shipped to another zoo.

Melman

Main article: Melman (Madagascar)

Voiced by David Schwimmer

Melman Menkowitz (age 11) is a hypochondriac giraffe, who was transferred to the Central Park Zoo as a young adult. Because of his previous stay in the Bronx Zoo, Melman believes that he’s a real worldly guy, the most experienced in his circle of friends. He's also on a lot of medication. He thinks he's always sick.

Gloria

Main article: Gloria (Madagascar)

Voiced by Jada Pinkett Smith

Gloria, a sassy hippopotamus, acts as a group mediator. She acts like a mother to Marty. She is extremely confidant with a take charge personality. A hippo with many sides - she is the nurturing heart of the group, and one sassy hippo. Gloria is a hip and happening hippopotamus with a whole lot of heart.

The Penguins

Main article: Penguins (Madagascar)

The four penguins are called Joe (more commonly known as Skipper), Rico, Kowalski, and Private. They believe that they are not penguins at all, but instead undercover agents for a secret government agency. To them it's all just a big conspiracy, and they spend their days planning an escape that will take them back to Antarctica. When the penguins do make it to Antarctica, they are surprised to see such a cold, barren land and decide to turn the ship toward what they consider "paradise".

Skipper is the leader of the group, the roundest penguin, and is voiced by the film's director Tom McGrath. Kowalski, the smartest and tallest of the penguins, thinks of plans and takes notes for Skipper. Private is distinguishable by his googly eyes and soft English accent; he is the youngest of the group. Rico is good with knives, has a fondness for explosives, and is the only one of the four seen swimming. Alex considers the penguins to be psychotic, while they think the same of him. Skipper calls Marty their "monochromatic friend".

The Lemurs

• King Julien XIII the Ring-tailed Lemur

• Voiced by Sacha Baron Cohen. According to a May 26, 2005 interview with Director Tom McGrath in the Seattle Post Intelligencer [1], "We had this two-line character, Julian [sic], and we got a tape of the show 'Ali G' with Sacha Baron Cohen. He came in and he invented this Indian accent. We gave him a couple of lines and he turned them into eight minutes of dialogue. We were just in tears on the floor and thought, 'This guy has to be the king.' So that was just a two-line part that he invented and it turned into that role." Self-proclaimed King of the Madagascar lemurs, Julien loves to sing, dance, and be the center of attention. He uses a crown made out of leaves, and later a larger crown that features a gecko to denote his royal stature. The other lemurs hang on his every word. He is slightly deranged and overly impressed by his modest intellect. He contrives to use Alex to protect the lemurs from their natural enemy, the fossa, as long as Alex doesn't overshadow his own glory. Julien speaks with an Indian accent. Also, according to the song "I like to move it, move it" King Julien XIII is about 68 years old.

• Maurice, the Aye-aye

• Voiced by Cedric the Entertainer.
• Maurice is Julien's assistant and second in command. He is in charge of announcing Julien to his court, though he finds this task tedious. He is generally less impressed by Julien than the other lemurs. Maurice shows the most intelligence in Julien's court, and is the only one to recognize Alex as a potentially greater threat than the fossa.

File:Mort021.JPG

Mort the Lemur -- rounded ears and a white stripe on his nose show him to be a Goodman's Mouse Lemur.

• Mort, the Mouse Lemur

• Voiced by Andy Richter.
• Mort is usually timid, but can become quite shrill and vocal when he opens up. The zoo animals find him adorable, but King Julien is highly annoyed by him, eventually shouting "Oh, shut up, you're so annoying!" in response to his inane chatter but Mort responds to this by giggling and looking flattered. In the commentary for the Film, the director mentioned that Mort was actually 35. Mort may be very cute, but the fossa almost ate him.

The Fossa

The fossas are pack-hunting predators native to Madagascar, who look like hyenas or half-cat half-dog creatures in appearance. They are the villains of the movie, and are constantly trying to kill and eat the lemurs. According to Julien, "they're always annoying us by trespassing, interrupting our parties, and ripping our limbs off". They are cowards, however, and always flee when confronted by a bigger predator, such as Alex. They also use foreign objects such as salt and pepper shakers.

Despite appearances, the pronunciation in the film ("foo-sah") is accurate, however the spelling (Foosa or Fousa) is not, as shown in one of the signs on the island.

Mason and Phil, the Chimpanzees

Mason and Phil are the sophisticated chimpanzees at the Central Park Zoo, preferring to "read" the newspaper and enjoy a cup of coffee in the morning; for them, freedom means attending a Tom Wolfe lecture to "fling poo at him." Mason (voiced by Conrad Vernon) speaks with an RP accent and plans the daily affairs for Phil and himself, but is unable to read. He is named for James Mason, whose voice inspired the character's portrayal. Phil doesn't speak, making him initially seem less intelligent, autistic, and more primitive than his comrade, but can read English and "speaks" American Sign Language which instills the idea that Phil is perhaps the more cerebral of the two. Both escape from the zoo in the beginning of the movie. They are also sent to the wildlife reserve along with the main characters. Unlike the main characters, they don't wash up on the shores of Madagascar, however they do appear in the background of the final scene in crates. They raid a wastebasket for leftover coffee and a newspaper, and their crate on the ship is full of aluminum cans (in the DVD, it is indicated that they contain root beer, not beer, likely implemented in order to make the film more family-friendly).
According to a May 26, 2005 interview with Director Tom McGrath in the Seattle Post Intelligencer [2], the chimp's "first scene was just deciphering the code on the shipping label. We got this girl who knew American Sign Language. We wanted (the gestures) to be really frenetic so she signed out, 'Tell the tiny pea-brained birds that the sign reads: Ship to ...' and it gave us enough hand gestures. Then we went back to 'I see that Tom Wolfe is speaking at Lincoln Center,' and she gestured, 'Can we throw our poo at his stupid white suit?'"

Cast

Character	English voice actor	French voice actor	German voice actor	Italian voice actor	Japanese voice actor	Brazilian voice actor	Czech voice actor	Finnish voice actor
Alex	Ben Stiller	José Garcia	Jan Josef Liefers	Alessandro Besentini	Hiroshi Tamaki	Alexandre Moreno	Filip Blažek
Marty	Chris Rock	Anthony Kavanagh	Rick Kavanian	Francesco Villa	Shingo Yanagisawa	Felipe Grinnan	Filip Švarc
Gloria	Jada Pinkett Smith	Marina Foïs	Claudia Urbschat-Mingues	Michelle Hunziker	Reiko Takashima	Heloísa Périssé	Miroslava Pleštilová
Melman	David Schwimmer	Jean-Paul Rouve	Bastian Pastewka	Fabio De Luigi	Yoshinori Okada	Ricardo Juarez	Václav Vydra
King Julien	Sacha Baron Cohen	Alexis Vega	Stefan Gossler	Oreste Baldini	Hiroaki Ogi	Guilherme Briggs	Pavel Šrom
Maurice	Cedric the Entertainer	N/A	Roland Hemmo	Roberto Draghetti	Ken Yahagi	Marcelo Torreão	Zbyšek Pantůček
Mort	Andy Richter	N/A	Gerald Schaale	Massimiliano Alto	Kappei Yamaguchi	Christiano Torreão	Jan Maxián
Skipper	Tom McGrath	N/A	Michael Beck	Luigi Ferraro	Hironari Yamazaki	N/A	Milan Slepička
Private	Christopher Knights	N/A	Smudo	N/A	Hidetsugu Shibata	N/A	Pavel Tesař
Kowalski	Chris Miller	N/A	Thomas D	N/A	Hideaki Tedzuka	Eduardo Dascar	Libor Terš
Rico	John DiMaggio	N/A	Andreas Rieke	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Mason	Conrad Vernon	N/A	N/A	N/A	Yūichi Nagashima	N/A	Tomáš Racek

Factual Inaccuracies

• Fossa do not hunt in packs.
• Lemur troops are usually led by a female.
• Lemurs don't form multi-species troops.
• Hummingbirds don't live in Madagascar.
• Saguaro cactuses are not found in Madagascar.
• The nearest current to Madagascar tends to flow in a counterclockwise direction, so in real life Marty, Melman, Alex, and Gloria, would end up in either Pakistan or India.
• A giraffe cannot bend its neck in every direction. If one tried, it would break its neck.
• Adelie penguins don't live in Africa. This was mentioned by Skipper and is probably a joke.
• The Central Park Zoo does not own or house lions, giraffes, zebras or hippopotamuses. To see these animals in New York City visitors have to visit the Bronx Zoo instead.
• Chimpanzees aren't monkeys.
• There are no restrooms in the area on the downtown 4,5,6 Lexingtion line subway station.

Allusions and Parody

• The film was rated PG but did feature one tongue-in-cheek allusion to two vulgar words. The character, Marty the Zebra (voiced by the famously profane comedian Chris Rock) uttered the words Sugar Honey Iced Tea in a slow motion scene on the beach, where he realizes that Alex the lion is chasing him out of anger. This was subtle enough for most children which would not have made such connection. Also, Alex uses wood to make a sign saying, "Help", but the top part of the p falls down, and the last letter becomes an L.
• The line "You burned it up! Darn you... Darn you all to heck!" is a reference to the line in Planet of the Apes: "You Blew it up! Damn you! Damn you all to hell!"
• Rico the Penguin only speaks once, while slicing fish. He says "Hai (はい, Hai)", which is Japanese for "yes". In the Madagascar penguins short, he says two words: "eggnog" and "kaboom".
• Marty, Alex, Gloria, and Melman are known in Madagascar as the New York Giants, a reference to the NFL football team based in East Rutherford, New Jersey. King Julien's exclamation, "All hail the New York Giants!" is also a reference to the Giants' official cheer.
• Madonna, Jennifer Lopez, and Gwen Stefani had also been considered for the voice of Gloria.
• The Old Lady who captures Private in The Madagascar Penguins in a Christmas Caper also played a cameo part in this film as the lady who assaulted Alex the lion (and Melman the giraffe briefly) with her bag in Grand Central Station.
• The scene of Alex fighting the fossa is similar to Neo fighting the Agent Smiths from The Matrix Reloaded.
• When people are fleeing from Alex in Grand Central Station, the "Wilhelm scream" is heard.
• During the slow motion sequence in which Alex attacks Marty out of hunger, the National Geographic theme plays.
• When Alex performs for the visitors at the zoo, he can be seen making the "Blue Steel" face from Zoolander, a movie Ben Stiller also stars in.
• Alex's steak fantasy scene spoofs the infamous rose petal sequence of American Beauty, even including part of Thomas Newman's actual score.
• When Alex is constructing "Lady Liberty" we hear him exclaim "Shut up Spalding!" to a basketball; this is a parody of Wilson the Volleyball from the movie Cast Away in which Tom Hanks makes a friend out of a volleyball for the duration of his isolation on the island.
• In the scene where Marty and Alex are running toward each other across the beach, the music from "Chariots of Fire" is played. Also, the beach setting is reminiscent of the opening scene from the same movie.
• In the Northern European versions of Madagascar, the song "What is Love" is used in the film, ending credits, and soundtrack instead of the song "I Like to Move It".
• The penguins respond, "We killed them and ate their livers!" when asked what happened to the people on the ship, a reference to Hannibal Lecter.
• When cornered in the police station, the lead Penguin states "We've been ratted out, boys," a reference to Jack Nicholson in Batman when breaking into Axes Chemicals.
• When Alex arrives on the island and starts calling for Gloria, Melman and Marty, he stars slurring and says "Gelman" followed by "Regis, Kelly" in reference to Michael Gelman the executive producer of Live with Regis and Kelly, then drawls "Matt, Katie, Al."
• When Alex starts to turn savage, he topples down a cliff of saquaro cacti, and gets one stuck to his back like a crucifix. He then ends up falling over a waterfall in this state. This is similar to the opening to The Mission, where a priest is tied to a crucifix and is sent down a river and over a waterfall.
• When the Lemurs meet in the plane, one pops up with a book titled "To Serve Lemur" and screams that it's a cookbook. This scene is a reference to an episode of the Twilight Zone called "To Serve Man," arguably one of the most famous episodes of the series.
• Skipper's line, "It's been a pleasure serving with you, boys," is likely a reference to Jim Lovell's famous quote, "Gentlemen, it's been a privilege flying with you".

Sequels and spinoffs

• A short film called The Madagascar Penguins in a Christmas Caper was released with the Madagascar DVD, and was theatrically released with Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit in the United States. A Madagascar 2 is planned for 2008. Dreamworks is also planning for a Madagascar 3 but none of the cast has signed on yet.

References

• Madagascar Motion Picture Soundtrack Booklet

External links

• Official site
• Madagascar at IMDb