Penguins of Madagascar *** (2014, voices of John Malkovich and Benedict Cumberbatch) – Movie Review

In this daft, frantic and amusing penguins spinoff from the DreamWorks Madagascar animation franchise, Skipper, Kowalski, Private and Rico get involved in a global espionage plot.

The form a SWAT team of penguins who join forces with a chic and helpful undercover organization called The North Wind to stop the vengeful, villainous, megalomaniac octopus Dave (aka Dr Octavius Brine) from destroying the world by stealing all the penguins.

John Malkovich and Benedict Cumberbatch are the film’s biggest assets as the distinctive and huge fun voices of Dave and the handsome and foxy Agent Classified, head of The North Wind. Also having are Ken Jeong, who is the voice of Short Fuse, and Peter Stormare, who is Corporal.

Dave’s dialogue offers him endless variations on a single gag:  e g ‘Hugh, Jack, man the battlestations’ and ‘Nicolas, cage the penguins’ etc. There’s another funny joke at the outset, when Werner Herzog sends up his own documentaries by providing voice of the Documentary Filmmaker narrating the story of a colony of penguins migrating across Antarctica and giggling when they fall on their ‘chubby bum-bums’.

It’s a shame about the tired spy spoof plot and that the penguins lack individual characters and personalities, looking pretty much the same and not sounding distinctive enough in the vocals of Tom McGrath, Chris Miller, Christopher Knights and Conrad Vernon (as Skipper, Kowalski, Private and Rico). More big laughs in the screenplay by John Aboud, Michael Colton and Brandon Sawyer, and maybe some pop tunes would jolly things up further too.

But for Malkovich and Cumberbatch and for Dave and Classified, this is essential animated entertainment. And of course penguins are irresistible, even talking ones.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Movie Review

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John Malkovich, who is the voice of  Dave.

Ken Jeong, who is the voice of Short Fuse.