MADAGASCAR - ESCAPE 2 AFRICA

I'm not much of a reviewer - I like most everything I see.

This was a fun movie. It starts off with a flashback to Alex the Lion's childhood, when he is lured off the reserve and captured by poachers. His father catches up to them, and knocks the crate off the truck. Little Alex is rescued, and shipped to the Central Park Zoo, where he becomes the "King of New York".

Picking up where the last movie left off, our friends Alex (voiced by Ben Stiller), Melman (David Schwimmer), Gloria (Jada Pinkett Smith) and of course Marty (Chris Rock) are preparing to fly home to New York, in an airplane piloted by those inventive, resourceful penguins. Of course, the plane doesn't go as far as it's supposed to, and crash lands in Africa.

There are lots of little gags based on the last movie, and also on other movies as well. It's a cute, funny story, not quite as good as the first movie, but I think that's just because they tend to belabor the traits that make each of these animals funny in the first place, whereas in the first one, they sort of came naturally.

All in all, I and my sons enjoyed it.

Next movie in the theater: either Bolt or The Tale Of Despereaux.

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PRESTO - Pixar Short Subject

We were going to watch our newly acquired DVD of Wall*E last night, but we got involved in doing Christmas decorating of the inside of the house (I got the outside done on Friday the 28th, and the tree was set up and decorated on the 29th). And today was a school day, so the boys had to go to bed earlier than they had over the last week or so.

But there was time to watch some of the extras from the DVD. And one was this Pixar short that we also saw in the theater. In the theater, I think the boys were overstimulated by the refreshments they were just starting to dig into, and by all the previews they had just finished showing, so I don't believe they paid as much attention to the short as they did in this more dedicated viewing session. They didn't seem to remember the subject very well, and I certainly don't recall them laughing at it uproariously as they did when we were watching it on our own TV.

Because laugh uproariously is pretty much what they did for the duration of this short film. The rabbit certainly got the better of the magician. I have to admit, I don't remember laughing as much at it in the theater as I did at home, either.

I can't wait to see the short entitled Burn*E. Maybe tonight.