163 - Madawhohar twice removed

Sooooo, I wish someone did this for me in the cinema because...well...wow. If they just took the comic relief characters (penguins, lemurs, and dik diks) doing the most random pointless things it would have been worth watching.
They lost me when the granny got out the Landrover and started beating up alex and he just punched her back in the face repeatedly. I had lion on granny fist fighting all up in my face and frankly left me with more of a 'huh' face than the whole Indian Jones 'fridge-tarzan-alien' vide. Just imagine a script being thrown to a pack of teenage boys, being mercelessly ravaged, then rescued only to be put into the hands of some teenage girls to patch up with some sentimentality somewhat resembling cute pink fluff.
The rift of friendship between Alex and Marty is so minimal that it almost surprises you that Marty is upset with Alex because frankly it isn't given the same amount of build up as it did in the last film, which brings me to wonder why they would go back to that concept all over again. Just because it worked the first time doesn't mean you should do it again. Surely Alex learned his lesson otherwise his whole character building on Madagascar would have been a complete waist of time. They should have given more time to Alex's situation or to Gloria and Melman rather than waist it on a segment that did not need to be told.
The character designs were not that crack shot either. The giraffes looked too smooth and foreign to Melman's design. The lions were better but the hippos didn't seem to show that much diversity. The whole New York thing was obviously one of those inside joke moments that pretty much everyone who is not familiar with New York just had to sit through those scenes rather unaffected by the humour.
From an African's point of view; Hollywood please, there are other countries in Africa other than Kenya and Swahili is not the only language here either, Swahili has a lot of Arabic in it anyway so it's not that African, the whole tribal music thing is only heard in high tourist areas where people come to 'experience' Africa with a cappuccino, music like Kwaito is far more realistic and isn't that bad.
All in all, I'd say Madagascar 2 is a let down from the original. I'd rent it from the dvd store on half price Thrusdays when you have nothing better to do.
One more thing. Dreamworks, stop making sequels. You're no good at it. There I said it. Now go and thing about what you've done.