soymilk

Having never seen the award-winning stage musical from which this particular special was derived, I'm probably not the best person to comment upon how much justice it does to its source (I do know, however, that they had to cut around two hours worth of material down to 50 minutes, so it probably feels rather rushed in comparison). In terms of just how much justice it does to Charles Schulz's delightful creation as a whole…well, it's something of a mixed bag. The whole thing its undeniably sweet and so full of colour and energy that it's damned near impossible to dislike, but in capturing the charm and enigma and sets 'Peanuts' apart from your average family-friendly cartoon it's only partially successful. Unlike most of the TV specials, it lacks a coherent, overriding storyline, consisting instead of several all-singing, all-dancing vignettes that, while frequently enjoyable on their own, fail to make up a satisfying whole. And while a fair serving of the trademark downbeat humour has survived, perhaps most evident in the scene where Charlie Brown (falsely) believes that the Little Red-Haired Girl has slipped a note into his pocket, it's largely substituted for a range of happy, upbeat tunes and lyrics about what a wonderful place the world can be, making it just a tad more sugary than most adult fans may be able to stand. It doesn't help matters that, when most of the child characters perform their numbers, they have an unfortunate tendency to sing off-key.

But heck, you can slap Snoopy and Charlie Brown's likeness upon almost anything, and chances are I'll warm to it. It would probably be irrelevant to complain about this special's 'bonus feature' that, instead of his usual cat/hyena yowl, Snoopy gets proper vocal representation this time round (after all, that was exactly how it was in the original comic trip). I'm not really sure just how well the voice actually matches the character, but the fact remains that he's easily the most agreeable singer of the cast, with his solo performances being the most effective. 'The Great Writer' and 'the Big Bow Wow' are fun, catchy tunes, and the final number 'Believe in You', even though it entails those pesky kid-singers, is perfectly pleasant, as is Linus's melody about the Great Pumpkin. Whatever else you can say about them, the songs here definitely haven't aged quite as prominently as those of another musically-orientated special, 'It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown'.

In short, it's charming enough, but personally I much prefer the regular 'Peanuts' specials, in which you get a substantial narrative coupled with lots of melancholic exchanges, and where Snoopy doesn't need a twenty-something human voice to convey what's on his mind.

It's hard to say just which demographic group this exceedingly charmless film is meant to appeal to exactly – too childish and witless to find much favour with the adult crowd who snapped up 'Toy Story', 'Shrek' and 'the Incredibles' so readily, while crammed with far too many in-jokes and cultural references which the majority of under-10s probably aren't going to understand, 'Madagascar' comes off instead as a half-baked ploy to appease both target audiences in a way that only caused the two of them to cancel each other out. Not even the vivid visual gloss and likable animation can disguise the fact that this is an inferior product on both counts. There isn't a plot beyond the premise, the story never develops into anything more than a rabble of mildly diverting sketches, and only two of the major characters (which include a big-headed lion, an energetic zebra, a neurotic giraffe and a female hippo with no especially outstanding personality traits – she's just there to be the token female in this otherwise male-dominated affair) actually do anything to justify their presence in the long run. It opens, fuddles around for 80-odd minutes, and then ends just as abruptly as it began, in what easily scores as one of the weakest and most outright inconclusive closings I've ever come across (in the split seconds between the film stopping and the end-credits starting, I could have sworn that the theatre's projector had blacked out). In the end, it doesn't amount to a great deal more than a colourful, sharply-animated shaggy dog story – easy on the vision, but rambling and inconsequential, and full-on proof as to why Dreamworks, as they stand, haven't a chance of stealing Pixar's crown. They may have gotten a head start when 'Shrek' thrashed 'Monsters Inc' at the Oscars in 2002, but it didn't take long before their routine started waning, and if something as limp and lightweight as 'Madagascar' is the best answer they have to the breath-taking 'Incredibles', then surely no one's laughing any more.

In the typical Dreamworks animation mould, the thing that marred 'Shrek 2' slightly for a handful of viewers, and had hordes of critics groaning about 'Shark Tale', this is a viciously, recklessly, 100% artificial potboiler in every single element – the soundtrack that pumps with popular, upbeat tunes at every turning, the incessant pop culture references, the endless, desperate-to-be-trendy bursts of contemporary slang, and last, but by no means least irritating, the tiresomely non-sequiter TV and movie spoofs, most of which have nothing useful to add in the way of story, character or humour, and are chiefly there for the sake of being there (the Twilight Zone, Chariots of Fire, Planet of the Apes – well, it's like Patty and Selma once said in an episode of 'the Simpsons': "the easiest way to be popular is to leech off the popularity of others."). Things which make it extremely difficult to warm to whatever slim pickings of heart and appeal you might find lurking underneath all the twaddle, in the tissue-thin storyline which sees Alex the lion and Marty the zebra enjoying a close friendship whilst in the comfy captivity of the Central Park Zoo, but finding their rapport tested when they escape into the wild with a couple of nondescript neighbours, and Alex's carnivorous instincts begin to awaken. Outwardly, that's actually pretty dramatic stuff, and it certainly had potential, but 'Madagascar' hasn't the gumption to flesh it out into anything particularly innovative or daring, let alone convince us to care how things will turn out for our 'heroes' either way. There are a few amusing moments to be had from a subplot involving a foursome of psychotic penguins, but very little that they didn't already show you in the trailers. The highbrow monkeys and cry-baby mouse lemur are funny enough, I suppose, but definitely not worth the cost of admission on their own.

All in all, this is a pretty poor film, and without doubt one of the weakest 3D animated features yet to have seen the light of day. So, it can only add insult to injury that whoever assembled this lovely-looking misfire seemingly knew nothing about the real-life island of Madagascar itself, or the many weird and wonderful creatures that inhabit it. I'm hardly a certified expert on the subject myself, of course, but I have seen enough nature documentaries and flicked through enough wildlife magazines in my time to know that it's spelt "fossa", not "foosa", and that, sadly, those guys aren't nearly as abundant (or expendable) as this movie would happily have you believe, while in the lemur world (particularly that of the ring-tailed variety) it's the females who wear the trousers around the place (yeah, King Lemur, my foot!). The most galling slip-up of them all, however, would be it's depiction of Madagascar itself as a completely uninhabited island, much in the style of 'Lord of the Flies'. Nope, there are actually people living there, you know (and I bet they're all thrilled to pieces by this film). Little I couldn't forgive, of course, if only the enjoyment value had been a lot higher. Unfortunately, it's about as entertaining as it is educational. Whether it's an informative source you're looking for to assist you with a geographical essay you have to write, or a well-made, agreeable movie to engage you for an hour and a half, you'd be better off looking elsewhere. Try harder, Dreamworks - it takes more than just visual eye candy and a few familiar voices to make this kind of thing pull its weight.

Grade: C-