Penguins of Madagascar (2014)

While taking too much from the "Despicable Me" franchise, "Penguins of Madagascar" is fun, funny and so maniacally paced that viewers will likely feel they got their ticket-price's worth.

But that doesn't excuse the fact that its a mediocre movie.

"Penguins" belongs in the mid-summer dross of quick-release films that count on built in audiences. This is a TV movie that got a release date during the Holiday season when family fare is compelling. This movie will likely result in a TV show (Penguins are cute! is the literal raison d'etre for this movie) but the movie is not worthy of cinematic release.

The story is too, too, familiar, the characters are rote, and the script's best gags are re-cycled. The best use of "Penguins" is to see if your eldest child is capable of riding herd on their sibs for the two hour running time of this film and its trailers. Sit a few rows behind your brood, smile at the familiar gags, then take the family out for ice cream. Chocolate may be the best compensation for sitting through "Penguins of Madagascar."

Fmovies: Watched it last Saturday in China with the kids, funny its earlier in China than in the US.

It was hilarious and fun, my 12 and 9 year old daughters loved it. They're fans of Madagascar and watched the shows on Nick. So they loved it.

I found it funny as well, lots of dialogue that adults will find funny as well. We'll we all watched the Madagascar movies, so I think this one is worth to watch in the movies. We watched it in 3D, which was so so.

2D or 3D, I think it would not matter. Enjoy it with your kiddies. Cheers!

There's an old saying that says, "If you forget your past, you doom the future." This is what unfortunately happened to this movie. The plot is weak and disrespects most of what has been stated for the penguins in the first movie and the television series. Now i know some would say that the series are supposedly set in an alternate history but the series followed best the penguin characters from the first movie. The Penguins of Madagascar had great potential but wasted it. The villain was weak and pathetic compared to villains introduced in the series.

However, this movie packs some fun dialogs and good laughs (for the first half of the movie) and is also a good family fun. This movie is forgettable and frankly not one i will want to see again anytime soon. It wasted a lot of potential but its OK if you forget the previous movies and not take too seriously the way they changed the penguins characters (I elaborate on this below).

Possible SPOILER incoming so SPOILER ALERT!!!

In the first movie, the penguins made clear that they had never been to Antarctica, and yet in this movie the penguins are shown to be there! Additionally the penguins characters are mysteriously changed! Skipper for example is now some sort of overly proud fatherly like character for private. He also speaks a lot which he never did (He was always brisk). I also thought he was goofy in some actions scenes (which he never was in the movies and series)He has also always been stern and reckless (he isn't anymore!!) Kowalski no longer provides us with inventions or theories, Rico is no longer as sadistic as he was and Private is suddenly a lot less naive and timid.

These are most unforgivable mistakes that this movie makes. The penguins so brisk/cute/cold/sadistic manners is what made them so popular and such loved characters. This movie breaks that. And the villain? A most pathetic one!! Not all all in the league of villains like Dr Blowhole or Hans the Puffin.

So much potential wasted!! I would rather pretend this movie never happened.

Penguins of Madagascar fmovies. When I first heard about this movie, I was thankful that Dreamworks chose to go this route instead of just giving us a Madagascar 4 (though at this point I won't be surprised if we see one sometime down the road) and rehashing what we have already seen for three movies. The Penguins offer a lot of potential. Unfortunately, while Penguins of Madagascar finally escapes the rehashed feeling of the Madagascar films with something new, it still proves to be underwhelming.

As the title suggest, the movie focuses on the four penguins from the Madagascar films, though it isn't necessary to have seen the other movies to understand this one. When the four penguins have a run-in with a new villain, Dave, they are forced to team up with another group of animal secret agents to stop Dave's evil plan.

It's a pretty straightforward plot up until the last bit (which I will talk about later). The film starts out fantastic. After a bit of back story the viewer is thrown straight into the action and it keeps up a nice fast pace. It is extremely entertaining to watch the action scenes unfold and the humor is top-notch. There are a lot of very clever jokes and a second viewing is probably required to catch everything. The voice acting is also top notch and I appreciate that they did not feel the need to rely on celebrities like many Dreamworks films do (the only big name was Benedict Cumberbatch, who also did a great job). For the first part of the film I was very entertained and began to think that this movie had surpassed my expectations.

But then, just like a balloon deflating, all of the fun, humor, and energy got sucked out in the third act. The energy was replaced by clichés and the clever humor from earlier was replaced with just downright weird jokes that didn't make any sense to me. For the last fifteen to twenty minutes the film just seems to drag, and by the time it was over all of the fun and excitement I had been feeling earlier was replaced by a "Eh, it was OK." I am quite disappointed that the writers could not keep up the fun feeling from the first half or give us something truly new.

While I appreciate Dreamworks trying to give us something a little different from the previous Madagascar films, this one just fell flat by the end. The kids will probably enjoy it and parents will have a few laughs at some of the jokes from the beginning of the film, but it lacks the creativity or emotion to leave an impact the way How to Train Your Dragon 2 did.

I didn't think I would like this as much or that it would be and feel as good as it did. It's not easy with spin-offs, the characters are there, but can you make a movie with them that can hold up? Obviously you can, which is something I expected (and expect) from the Minions movie, but not really from the Penguins.

While it's a kids movie, it also has a lot to offer for adults to. Which every good kids movie is doing nowadays of course. The story is pretty thin, but we get a couple of new people involved and of course an "enemy" we have to engage with. The ending might feel like a letdown for some (to some more than to others), but overall the movie did achieve what it set out to do.

2015 kicks off with a stupendously silly but mostly amusing animated film that is best enjoyed with easy-to-please toddlers chuckling by your side. After stealing the limelight in the Madagascar trilogy, the awesome foursome get their own adventure, complete with globetrotting hijinks, high-flying acrobatics and extravagant escapes. Filled to the brim with physical comedy and written quips (a string of celebrity themed puns are hilarious), this spin off adheres to the franchise's humour-formula of quantity over quality, but is so light in tone it's hard to begrudge it. The eponymous flightless seabirds – Skipper, Kowalski, Rico and Private – are as intrepid, idiotic and cuddly as ever, but are arguably better suited to stealing scenes at second fiddle rather than leading from the front for a whole movie. There's an underpinning message – don't underestimate the little guy – that permeates throughout the swift runtime, building up to a stock standard finale that skimps on laughs in favour of a moral payoff. Penguins lacks the adorability of Paddington, the exhilaration of Big Hero 6, or the intelligence of either, yet remains a decent option for families looking to waste a couple of hours during the school break.