Movie Thoughts: Penguins of Madagascar (2014)

• Released: 26 November 2014
• Directed by: Eric Darnell, Simon J. Smith
• Running time: 1 h 32 min
• Rating 3/5

Synopsis

The Penguins from the Madagascar movies face their biggest mission yet as they have to face a deranged octopus out for revenge on all of penguin-kind. 

My Thoughts

Fun fact: one of my favorite childhood Nickelodeon shows was actually in fact The Penguins from Madagascar (not to be confused with this movie). I genuinely just enjoyed watching it and its comedy and such. The animation wasn't the greatest, but it made up for it with some funny humor and great specials.

So how does the movie based on the spinoff show go? It's pretty good. Okay, not as much of an comedy high as Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted is, but I still got some laughs out of this. I'm actually surprised I liked the movie this much, seeing how usually spinoffs where the comic relief becomes the main character don't do so well (see: Cars 2).

The story is mainly about Private showing he's truly a valuable member of the team. A cute basic premise. He was always my favorite out of the four, so not a bad idea to focus the movie mainly on his development (don't worry, the rest get ample screen time, too). 

The villain was...eh. Okay, so I genuinely like the villain Dr. Blowhole from the Penguins show, so I expected a similarly great villain from the movie. Unfortunately, Dave really wasn't my favorite. The animation on him is amazing, don't get me wrong, but he wasn't as comedic as I'd have liked. His jokes are mostly him using celebrity names for his minions and his name being said wrong, there really isn't that much else to him. 

The North Wind crew were some enjoyable side characters, but they really felt like they had very little to them. I guess Classified as their leader has the biggest arc, but even he feels pretty standard as a character.

I wouldn't say it's as good as the spinoff show or the Madagascar movies, but I had a good time watching it nonetheless!