Penguin Poffy

A lion, a zebra, a hippopotamus and a giraffe are best friends at the Manhattan Zoo. The zebra dreams of frolicking free in Africa, the others revel in their star status at the Zoo (except the hypochondriac giraffe, who, being a hypochondriac, doesn't enjoy much, but is nonetheless more fulfilled being a hypochondriac IN the zoo than OUT of it).

Once again in a 3D cartoon, real voiceover talent is slighted in favor of marquee stars (Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, Jada Pinkett-Smith and David Schwimmer as the above animals), who provide the necessary box office clout to divert the audience's attention from this movie's ignorant evolutionary gaffes.

Through events that can only be described in these vapid kiddie vehicles as "wacky," the four friends soon find themselves crated on a barge to Africa. They fall overboard and wash ashore in Madagascar (which they refer to as The Wild - a dig at Disney's upcoming film of the same name? - featuring both a lion and giraffe in lead roles as well). Missing his regular Zoo steaks, the lion reverts to his instinctual carnivorous state, regarding his best pal, the zebra, as lunch.

THIS - my dear puritans and fundamentalists, concerned parents and animal activists - is called Nature.

THIS - is the movie's baked-in flaw, for the zebra was fantasizing "freedom," but upon his friend the lion attaining that freedom, the film missteps in the other direction entirely, treating the lion's carnivorism as a regress, a relapse, rather than a reversion (or uplifting) to a natural state; an undesirable condition, like alcoholism or mental incapacitation, rather than his genetic heritage. The lion even refers to himself as a "monster" for wanting to eat the zebra.

But he would be a "monster" in the true evolutionary sense (i.e. a deviant) if he did NOT want to eat the zebra.

The zebra consoles, "You're NOT a monster!" But his consolation is for the wrong reasons! The zebra believes that the lion's friendship towards him will win out over the somehow UN-natural state of regarding him as prey.

So even though the lion is now complying with his niche in nature more so than he ever did when friendly with the ungulate, we are force-fed the attitude that killing live prey and eating meat is tantamount to eating your friends.

Of course, kids watching this herbivorist bigotry readily accept its validity because they do not equate those plastic-wrapped, square-shaped steaks from the grocery store with murdered animals. Disguised behind industry and packaging, our society conveniently forgets what we ourselves consume for sustenance: Meat - dead animal flesh! And the hypocrisy of this cartoon is perpetuated without any irony at all. And without any realization that it's hypocrisy.

This movie's obnoxious message against the life and death relationship we all share with every other creature on earth has become acceptable simply because of its ubiquity, not through any logic or common sense. The lion needs the nutrients supplied by the zebra's flesh to live - if he does not eat what his metabolism has evolved to process for energy, he is going to die. And his species would not have made it this far if they were all this genetically attuned against the Circle of Life.

Yes, I hear the peanut gallery, with hands over their children's ears, yelling, "Lighten up! This bollocks is merely entertainment!" Granted there are entertaining vignettes: head penguin, Skipper (voiced by co-director, Tom McGrath, sounding uncannily like Billy West doing Futurama's Zapp Brannigan doing Phil Hartman) is a scream orchestrating his military maneuvers; Sacha Baron Cohen steals the movie voicing king lemur, Julian (sounding uncannily like Robin Williams doing Peter Sellers doing an Indian) and offering a tiny supercute lemur up as constant scapegoat. But the hypocrisy and paradox in this movie are at odds with its own story and plot.

Either the lion knew all along that he was suppressing his urges to dine on the zebra through friendship, or he should never realize it. His succumbing to instinct and then being regarded as a deviant displays the highest form of ignorance in the film-makers (writers Mark Burton, Billy Frolick, Eric Darnell, Tom McGrath; directed by Darnell and McGrath).

A few stupid men annul this four-billion-year-old planet's circle of life, and those who purport to love the Earth (especially in this faddish new zeitgeist of politically-motivated faux-concern over global warming) reveal their intrinsic contempt for the planet in blindly accepting the twisted message in this movie.

In a final act of turning carnivores into pansies, the penguins solve the lion's lunch problem by preparing sushi for him. Whereas in Finding Nemo (2003) all the fish were as cognizant and sentient as the mammals in Madagascar, in Madagascar, apparently - they're just sushi.

END