Eric Darnell
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All of it's wasted, really, on another run-of-the-mill slapstick cartoon that, after a marvellous hallucination culminating with a hippo dressed as the Statue of Liberty, becomes a procession of the usual pop-smart references to stuff like Cast Away , Planet of the Apes, The Mission, Chariots of Fire, "Hawaii Five-O", and that "To Serve Man" episode of "The Twilight Zone".
For all the grown-up caregivers who are sitting in the theater, however -- the ones for whom, presumably, all the hipper-than-thou references to HMOs, Tom Wolfe, "Planet of the Apes," "Chariots of Fire" and Washoe the sign-language-using chimp are meant -- it would be nice if the movie didn't insult our intelligence by withholding a real ending in favor of one that, in more ways than one, merely runs out of gas.
A screwball adventure about four animals who escape from their supposedly cushy captivity of the Central Park Zoo and eventually end up lost in the wild, "Madagascar" has good energy, fairly steady chuckles for kids (fart jokes and spit-takes galore), and a few out-loud laughs for adults, mostly stemming from hilarious homages to movies from "Chariots of Fire" to "American Beauty" to "Planet of the Apes."
In short, Madagascar is a violent place kids at the screening I attended were crying and the filmmakers (Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath) layer in lackluster nods to Chariots of Fire, Castaway, and Planet of the Apes that didnt make them laugh.
The plot in "Madagascar," however, is frequently interrupted (or all but overwhelmed) by the gags; halfway through the film's brisk 80 minutes the screenwriters still haven't established where the movie is heading, although they have squeezed in references to Tom Wolfe, "Chariots of Fire," "Saturday Night Fever," "Hawaii Five-O," "Cast Away," "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" and one of Earth, Wind and Fire's greatest hits.
If we're not suffering poo-flinging or butt-biting, we get the theme songs from Chariots of Fire and "Hawaii Five-O."
It writes itself into more corners than it can write its way out of, hoping that if it throws enough pop-cultural references at us — “Cast Away,” “Planet of the Apes,” etc. — we won’t notice how frantically it’s trying to figure out what to do.
All of it's wasted, really, on another run-of-the-mill slapstick cartoon that, after a marvellous hallucination culminating with a hippo dressed as the Statue of Liberty, becomes a procession of the usual pop-smart references to stuff like Cast Away , Planet of the Apes, The Mission, Chariots of Fire, "Hawaii Five-O", and that "To Serve Man" episode of "The Twilight Zone".
Many of the tell-tale jokes designed to cater to adult audiences, including lame-o references to Cast Away and Planet of the Apes, will produce more groans than knowing smiles.
The plot in "Madagascar," however, is frequently interrupted (or all but overwhelmed) by the gags; halfway through the film's brisk 80 minutes the screenwriters still haven't established where the movie is heading, although they have squeezed in references to Tom Wolfe, "Chariots of Fire," "Saturday Night Fever," "Hawaii Five-O," "Cast Away," "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" and one of Earth, Wind and Fire's greatest hits.
For instance, there's a brief shot of Spaulding the basketball, a reference to Wilson the volleyball in "Cast Away."
On the surface, the film is little more than an ironic fish-out-of-water comedy in which domesticated animals struggle to adapt to their natural habitats, and it’s a relief to find directors Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath keeping poop jokes (such as one involving a rectal thermometer) and of-the-moment entertainment industry allusions (including unnecessary mentions of Regis & Kelly and Cast Away‘s Wilson) to a relative minimum.
Allen's one-liners are smoothly folded into a clever adventure tale that also incorporates allusions to Fritz Lang's "Metropolis," various Biblical stories and the class-conscious "screwball comedies" of the 1930s.
On a larger scale, "Antz" features unprecedented crowd scenes and multi-dimensional "sets" (a majestic, organic "Metropolis" ant hill interior, an ant's-eye-view of a picnic) that also raise the bar on this emerging art form.
Something of a combination of "Metropolis" and "Logan's Run" with elements of the 1950's nuclear paranoia film, "Them!" thrown in, "Antz" is a visual delight with the potential to appeal to generations of moviegoers.
The celebrity voices and multiple pop-culture references remain pervasive (ranging from clever riffs on "American Beauty" to "Planet of the Apes"), but they're not as suffocating.
Astute grownups will catch nods to Cast Away, Planet of the Apes and (my favorite) American Beauty.
A screwball adventure about four animals who escape from their supposedly cushy captivity of the Central Park Zoo and eventually end up lost in the wild, "Madagascar" has good energy, fairly steady chuckles for kids (fart jokes and spit-takes galore), and a few out-loud laughs for adults, mostly stemming from hilarious homages to movies from "Chariots of Fire" to "American Beauty" to "Planet of the Apes."
For the adults, there is a non-stop bar rage of cultural references, from "American Beauty" and "Silence of the Lambs" to "The Twilight Zone" and "National Geographic" TV specials.
Some of these jokes are clever -- "Madagascar," for instance, includes a take-off on the famous "American Beauty" rose petal dream sequence that even incorporates Thomas Newman's familiar score -- and DreamWorks has hired first-class talent to put them over ("Shark Tale" featured the voices of Will Smith, Renee Zellweger and Angelina Jolie, while "Madagascar" boasts the talents of Chris Rock, Ben Stiller and David Schwimmer).
Boom, here comes an adorable zebra, running amok in New York's Grand Central Terminal, then boom, there's a funny lift from "American Beauty."
The film began life simply enough, as yet another of Jeffrey Katzenberg's "fuck you so hard" gestures to his old boss and nemesis Michael Eisner; their rivalry fueled the creation of the animation studio that Katzenberg had tried to use to out-Disney Disney, beginning with 1998's dramatic musical The Prince of Egypt , DreamWorks' second feature (their first, Antz from earlier in the same year was a more petulant but also lower-key "fuck you" to Disney's handmaidens at Pixar).
It began in 1998, when Disney released ''A Bug's Life'' and DreamWorks came out with ''Antz,'' two movies that were nearly identical in their looks and themes.
According to the press materials, “Shrek” avails itself of a DreamWorks “proprietary” facial animation system (first used in “Antz” ) that uses a layering process to build the image of a character’s face, starting with the skull and then gradually adding computer re-creations of muscles and skin.
The second computer-generated animated film from Dreamworks (with the first being the disappointing 1998 movie, "Antz"), "Shrek" is a dazzling display of creative artistry and sheer imagination.
The look of the film will be familiar to anyone who's seen the Toy Story movies, Antz or A Bug's Life, but Shrek does qualify as the first digitally animated movie to feature a large number of humans, who unfortunately still move with the stiffness of video game characters.
While computer animation has proven useful in rendering strange creatures in previous movies, such as Antz, it always seemed to falter when it came to portraying realistic humans.
The state-of-the-art animation alone makes the movie worthwhile, but on top of the technical wizardry, "Antz," like "Toy Story," is ripe with dozens of hip references certain to zoom over the heads of anyone under the age of 10.
This is the project that was raced through production at computer graphics house Pacific Data Incorporated in order to beat A Bug's Life -- Disney and Pixar's follow-up to the immensely successful Toy Story -- to movie screens.
October 3, 1998 -- "Antz" is a very clever new computer-animated movie of the type pioneered by "Toy Story."
Round two is shaping up as a real contest; Antz is a very clever film that sets the bar high for A Bug's Life (which comes from the makers of Toy Story and therefore will be a force in its own right).
It's also an amazing feat of computer animation, so advanced and life-like it almost makes "Toy Story" look like it was made by a kid with a box of 64 Crayolas.
Before embarking on the 18-month filming process for "Antz," which follows "Toy Story" as the second all-computer-animated film in Hollywood history, they spent a full year researching and preparing the project.
In some ways "Madagascar" is a spiritual descendant of another kind of animated cartoon, clay animation wizard Nick Park's 1990 Oscar-winning "Creature Comforts," which had zoo animals talking feelingly about their lot in life.
The Lion King (1994)
Directed by Roger Allers
influenced Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008), Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted (2012), Madagascar (2005)
Plot Characters
If you smell a whiff of The Lion King in all of it, that's no accident.
However, in a cheeky spin on The Lion King, wannabe alpha big cat Makunga (Alec Baldwin) resents the new arrivals and engineers Alex’s banishment from the colourful waterhole community.
Alex finds his parents—the late Bernie Mac provides the voice of daddy Zuba, big mane on campus—and with obvious allusions to Scar in "The Lion King," Alec Baldwin lends his sterling basso distrusto voice to jealous Makunga, a petty and venal lion indeed, who exploits naive, showbizzy Alex for his own political gain.
Hey, it's still an improvement, clichés and all - and it must be noted, those parts of the sequel which don't steal from Madagascar are quite content to steal from a host of other, better movies, with The Lion King being a particularly obvious influence.
Zuba and his wife (Sherri Shepherd) are overjoyed to be reunited with Alex, and he with them—but, in a plot twist lifted straight out of The Lion King, Zuba also has a brother, Makunga (Alec Baldwin), who is itching to lead the lions in Zuba's place.
The storyline is derivative yet passablereally, it copies too much off of 1994's "The Lion King"but the crass gags and forgettable script keep it from being the charmer it should have been.
Between "A Bug's Life," "Antz," "The Ant Bully," and the others, the concept has been done to death.
If it helps, we weren't that impressed, either, when Woody Allen tried to be an ant in "Antz."
As he notes the paradoxes of his airborne “fat little body” and his resilient individualism thriving in the hive, Barry sets up what looks to be Antz again, a series of adventures wherein the neurotic New Yorker finds unexpected happiness in formula.
Before it heads into litigious spheres, Bee Movie's plot closely hews to that of Antz and other animated insect fare where a lone bug tries to break free of a conformist society.
Actually, Bee Movie is a lot like Antz except with a younger multi-millionaire mensch substituting for Woody Allen.
A screwball adventure about four animals who escape from their supposedly cushy captivity of the Central Park Zoo and eventually end up lost in the wild, "Madagascar" has good energy, fairly steady chuckles for kids (fart jokes and spit-takes galore), and a few out-loud laughs for adults, mostly stemming from hilarious homages to movies from "Chariots of Fire" to "American Beauty" to "Planet of the Apes."
Boom, there's a gangly giraffe stuck in a pipe, then boom, there's a witty homage to "Planet of the Apes."
In short, Madagascar is a violent place � kids at the screening I attended were crying � and the filmmakers (Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath) layer in lackluster nods to Chariots of Fire, Castaway, and Planet of the Apes that didn�t make them laugh.
All of it's wasted, really, on another run-of-the-mill slapstick cartoon that, after a marvellous hallucination culminating with a hippo dressed as the Statue of Liberty, becomes a procession of the usual pop-smart references to stuff like Cast Away , Planet of the Apes, The Mission, Chariots of Fire, "Hawaii Five-O", and that "To Serve Man" episode of "The Twilight Zone".
Born Free (1966)
Directed by James Hill
influenced Madagascar (2005), Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008), Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted (2012)
Music
The story begins with our obligatory “Born Free” reference (glad they got it out of the way), which initially made me a bit queasy but thankfully segued into a pedestrian early-morning scene in the Central Park Zoo, where our heroes Alex the lion (Ben Stiller), Marty the Zebra (Chris Rock), Gloria the hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith), and Melman the giraffe (David Schwimmer) live out their days in pampered metropolitan bliss.
The other music is not quite so old-fashioned as Wall-E's, but it does include snippets of such venerable numbers as "New York, New York," "Born Free," and "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly."
Madagascar, which opens with a chorus of penguins singing ''Born Free'' (fear not ?
Children will enjoy the ride, yet older folks will find it especially entertaining, provided they catch the many pop-culture references flung their direction, whether to the mini-series Roots, the theme music from Born Free, the Spaghetti Western scores of Ennio Morricone, or the choreography of Bob Fosse and Jerome Robbins.
Hans Zimmer keeps the music flowing throughout and the soundtrack even provides some of the more subtle gags such as the song “Born Free” on one occasion and the Capitaine rallying her severely injured animal control officers by singing Edith Piaf’s signature song “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien.”
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019)
Directed by Dean DeBlois
influenced by Antz (1998)
Plot
In its early days, the studio directly copycatted Pixar, with movies like Antz and Shark Tale attempting to ride the coattails of A Bug’s Life and Finding Nemo .
When Dreamworks Animation first made its mark with Antz back in 1998, hopes were high that this would be the competition needed to take on the mighty Pixar.
(The proximity of the release dates of these films brings to mind the 1998 clash between two similar toon flicks about insects, A Bug’s Life and Antz .)
Whether Armageddon/Deep Impact or AntZ/A Bug’s Life, examples abound, but even so, three very similar films is an anomaly.
La Dolce Vita (1960)
Directed by Federico Fellini
influenced Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted (2012)
Additionally, cinephiles will get a kick out of a nod to the Trevi Fountain scene in Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita.”
Woody Allen provides the voice of the formicary lead in Antz, the sophisticated, funny, and joyously subversive animated bug epic that, for all its snazzy computer animation, can claim the 1955 cartoon version of George Orwell's Animal Farm as a first cousin.
Epic feels overlong and overly reminiscent of several other animated movies, like The Secret World of Arrietty , Happy Feet , and Antz .
Taking characters from William Joyce children’s novel about “Leaf Men” and “Brave Good Bugs,” a team of writers has borrowed from “Antz” and “A Bug’s Life,” and even “Spiderwicke Chronicles” for a story about the fairy forces of life in a forest, the Leaf Men (and women) and their allies, in battle with the rotting reptilian bog-dwelling forces of decay.
“Turbo’’ actually looks pretty good compared to Pixar’s recent, mediocre “Monsters University” — not to mention a long line of DWA horrors like “Megamind’’ and “Madagascar.”
Having paid his dues with cut-rate Madagascar television and direct-to-video spinoffs, director David Soren initially displays some ambitious aims with the bigger budget and larger canvas he’s been offered here.
In 1998, DreamWorks animation and Disney-distributed Pixar released competing movies set in an anthill, both centered on a misfit ant with a special relationship with the ant princess (Antz and A Bug’s Life).
Back in 1998, animation studios Pixar (Toy Story, Monsters Inc) and Dreamworks ( Shrek) went head to head with rival insect pics Antz and A Bug's Life, with Pixar eventually declared the winner in terms of critical acclaim and box office (although, to all right thinking people, Antz was a lot funnier).
The ads proclaim "From the makers of Shrek and Shark Tale" and that sales pitch tells you pretty much what you can expect: a slick, mildly entertaining animation from DreamWorks that is short on story, long on one-liners and venerable pop culture references, a film of celebrity voices, musical set-pieces and occasional bursts of visual inventiveness that feels as if it has been created from an animator's template.
Somewhere between the fairy tale abuse of Shrek and the retro pop culture of Shark Tale lies the happy medium of Madagascar.
And considering that "Madagascar" is the next CG family comedy from DreamWorks, after the aggressively unpleasant "Shark Tale," the question takes on a little more relevance.
The silly, good-natured "Madagascar" is a significant improvement over DreamWorks' previous animated effort, "Shark Tale."
It started all the way back in 1998 when Eric Darnell and Tim Johnson's Antz came out just one month before John Lasseter’s A Bug's Life , and movie-goers have been drawing lines between projects ever since – from Shark Tale (2004) vs. Finding Nemo (2003), to Megamind (2010) vs.
Produced by Dreamworks Animation and released by Universal, The Bad Guys fits the mold that the studio established with its first film, Antz in 1998: very well animated and entirely familiar, like Disney, except not as good.
He joins giants like Richard Pryor in that no matter what you thought of Stir Crazy, it's a far cry from his seminal work on stage.