Movie Review: Penguins of Madagascar
Because The Imitation Game isn’t in theaters for me yet (*cries* I’m so jealous of those of you who have seen it already!) but I still need my Benedict Cumberbatch movie fix, it’s off to see the animated penguins for me!
I’d had pretty low expectations for the movie but was actually very pleasantly surprised! This was a really fun movie; I laughed aloud in the theater quite a bit. And as a Benedict fan, I’ve definitely gotten my money’s worth, as he was in this a lot! Probably the third-most amount of lines, after Tom McGrath’s penguin leader Skipper and John Malcovich’s scheming octopus Dave. Wow!
Overall, The Penguins of Madagascar was a solid family film about four rather unusual penguins who have formed an international espionage squad. There’s Skipper (the fearless leader who delivers every line bracingly, like he’s addressing an army squadron-which of course he is!), Kowalski (the technical mastermind and second-in-command), Rico (…demolitions expert?), and Private (who is still determining his place on the team and uncomfortable about it). Their high-energy antics were exhilarating, and their evolving family/team dynamic was sweet to watch.
They are forced to intervene when the purple octopus Dave/Dr. Octavius Brine (voiced by John Malcovich) decides to get revenge on all cute animals (starting with penguins!) for taking attention away from him and his fellow octopi. There are tons of in-jokes and winks to the audience, which you have to be so careful with, but I felt these one-liners worked well.
And now to Benedict! Apparently nobody in production cottoned onto the fact that he simply cannot pronounce the word “penguins” (preferring “peng-wings”), but far from hurting the movie, I think this delicious little tidbit just makes his character even funnier.
I was iffy at first about Benedict taking this role-I’ve seen DreamWorks animated films with prominent actors go badly before-like the unimpressive first Madagascar movie (though recently with Megamind and How to Train Your Dragon things have been looking up)-but now I’m glad he took it, because he was great.
His character, the arctic wolf Agent “Classified,” is the leader of the North Wind, another animal-staffed espionage squad with all the expensive tools and gadgets, but who are unfortunately not as suave and badass as they would like to be. The pleasure here is that Benedict’s character-yes, the animated wolf in a children’s movie-legitimately has several layers and ultimately shares similarities with his Martin Crieff from Cabin Pressure. Yes, Benedict does comedy acting just as well as he does everything else! At times he’s laugh-out-loud hysterical.
So yes, very pleasantly surprised to be recommending this one, but thumbs up for the peng-wings. :)
More Benedict reviews here.
By the way, I got a tumblr here (shadowfireflame, same name as my LJ) because it's so easy to keep track of fanart there, so please add me if you want! :)
I’d had pretty low expectations for the movie but was actually very pleasantly surprised! This was a really fun movie; I laughed aloud in the theater quite a bit. And as a Benedict fan, I’ve definitely gotten my money’s worth, as he was in this a lot! Probably the third-most amount of lines, after Tom McGrath’s penguin leader Skipper and John Malcovich’s scheming octopus Dave. Wow!
Overall, The Penguins of Madagascar was a solid family film about four rather unusual penguins who have formed an international espionage squad. There’s Skipper (the fearless leader who delivers every line bracingly, like he’s addressing an army squadron-which of course he is!), Kowalski (the technical mastermind and second-in-command), Rico (…demolitions expert?), and Private (who is still determining his place on the team and uncomfortable about it). Their high-energy antics were exhilarating, and their evolving family/team dynamic was sweet to watch.
They are forced to intervene when the purple octopus Dave/Dr. Octavius Brine (voiced by John Malcovich) decides to get revenge on all cute animals (starting with penguins!) for taking attention away from him and his fellow octopi. There are tons of in-jokes and winks to the audience, which you have to be so careful with, but I felt these one-liners worked well.
And now to Benedict! Apparently nobody in production cottoned onto the fact that he simply cannot pronounce the word “penguins” (preferring “peng-wings”), but far from hurting the movie, I think this delicious little tidbit just makes his character even funnier.
I was iffy at first about Benedict taking this role-I’ve seen DreamWorks animated films with prominent actors go badly before-like the unimpressive first Madagascar movie (though recently with Megamind and How to Train Your Dragon things have been looking up)-but now I’m glad he took it, because he was great.
His character, the arctic wolf Agent “Classified,” is the leader of the North Wind, another animal-staffed espionage squad with all the expensive tools and gadgets, but who are unfortunately not as suave and badass as they would like to be. The pleasure here is that Benedict’s character-yes, the animated wolf in a children’s movie-legitimately has several layers and ultimately shares similarities with his Martin Crieff from Cabin Pressure. Yes, Benedict does comedy acting just as well as he does everything else! At times he’s laugh-out-loud hysterical.
So yes, very pleasantly surprised to be recommending this one, but thumbs up for the peng-wings. :)
More Benedict reviews here.
By the way, I got a tumblr here (shadowfireflame, same name as my LJ) because it's so easy to keep track of fanart there, so please add me if you want! :)