Madagascar

Last weekend, we took the kids to see the new DreamWorks computer animated movie “Madagascar”. If you have the opportunity, I would highly recommend seeing it. The animation is incredible, the storyline is solid and the dialogue is sharp with plenty of very good adult-oriented jokes. The acting is surprisingly well done, far better than in the last Star Wars movie (though granted, that’s a pretty low baseline). The movie also features two monkeys constantly conspiring to launch a fecal assault and a troupe of penguin paramilitaries in one of the best prison break roles I’ve seen since “The Great Escape”.

During my morning coffee run today, we were discussing our weekend when I brought up the point that I took my kids to see this movie. A co-worker of mine, a gifted engineer with a computer animation fetish asked, “Do penguins really drive the boat around all over the place?” I’m guessing he was a little unclear on whether the movie was produced by DreamWorks or National Geographic. I assured him that though they did manage that caper in the movie, in real life there are few species of flightless waterfowl with the martial arts skills to commandeer an ocean liner and probably even fewer that know their way around a nautical navigation map, so the Princess Cruise ships prowling the Antarctic tourism circuit are probably safe from the avian wing of al Qaeda.