Dillgaar
06-29-2005, 10:59 AM
Disclaimer: this review may contain spoilers. So if you don’t want the movie ruined please read ahead with caution.
If you haven’t seen Madagascar yet I have one thing to say: DON’T BOTHER!!!
Up until now there hasn’t been a CGI feature film that I haven’t enjoyed, even if it was only a little bit, Madagascar has found that perfect formula for a dud of a movie.
First up, crappy CG. Yup crappy CG. When you are watching a CG movie you want to feel the depth of the movie. You want to be involved in the world and pulled into it. Madagascar would have been better off and far cheaper if it had been in 2D and it wouldn’t have lost anything. Why bother doing full on CG graphics if your movie is going to look flat. There were few if any parts of the film itself that created a 3D feel. One of those being in the next category: use of outdated movie references.
Yup you heard me… and the two that stuck out like a sore thumb and didn’t even fit into the movie (random movie references are worse when they don’t really fit into what is going on) were the American Beauty and Cast Away ones. I mean come on, movie references from 5+ years ago when they don’t really fit into the scene feel so horribly forced that it actually makes the audience feel uncomfortable.
Next we have the lack of character interest. Let's take four zoo animals and give them each a personality tick. So we get a neurotic giraffe, a motherly hippo, a prima donna lion and a daydreaming zebra. The characters were about as two-dimensional as the CG was. Their relationships were introduced and really that is all we had. The dialogue was lacking and it felt like there was one scene that was just repeated over and over. It didn’t help the next item on our list: plot, or lack thereof.
The story was dull and poorly executed. By the time anything interesting was happening the audience was too bored to notice. It is a CG movie… the story/plot and the visuals are what need to be focused on. This movie kept dragging us along hoping that something was going to happen and when the credits started rolling we realized it just wasn’t going to happen. Don’t get me started on the lack of humor in this movie; I hope I never see another lemur again.
Again to emphasize: Plot, Visuals, and Humor. These are the three pinnacles with which an animated feature will succeed. Sadly Madagascar failed on all accounts. There were comical moments here and there but nothing to really get you into the movie. The visuals were far below something we should be seeing nowadays, and don’t get me wrong, I LOVE stylized films but this one did it at a severe reduction in quality. Conversation movies are great, I love Kevin Smith movies and the creative dialogue that happens between characters, but a quick note to anyone else ever making a CG feature… THESE MOVIES ARE NOT ABOUT THE DIALOGUE!!! Please oh please oh please do not waste your movie time nor the audiences by having the characters sitting there as their mouths move, it is boring, we want humor, we want visuals and we want a well defined plot that pulls us in and makes us really care about the characters.
I tend to be lenient on bad films but this one just keeps me from being able to do that. The only thing keeping me from leaving the theater was the guy sleeping in a chair between me and the aisle. I feel emotionally scarred by this movie.
I give it ½ out of 4 Gnomes.
Lets All Gnome to the Movies © 2005 by Dillgaar
All Rights Reserved
If you haven’t seen Madagascar yet I have one thing to say: DON’T BOTHER!!!
Up until now there hasn’t been a CGI feature film that I haven’t enjoyed, even if it was only a little bit, Madagascar has found that perfect formula for a dud of a movie.
First up, crappy CG. Yup crappy CG. When you are watching a CG movie you want to feel the depth of the movie. You want to be involved in the world and pulled into it. Madagascar would have been better off and far cheaper if it had been in 2D and it wouldn’t have lost anything. Why bother doing full on CG graphics if your movie is going to look flat. There were few if any parts of the film itself that created a 3D feel. One of those being in the next category: use of outdated movie references.
Yup you heard me… and the two that stuck out like a sore thumb and didn’t even fit into the movie (random movie references are worse when they don’t really fit into what is going on) were the American Beauty and Cast Away ones. I mean come on, movie references from 5+ years ago when they don’t really fit into the scene feel so horribly forced that it actually makes the audience feel uncomfortable.
Next we have the lack of character interest. Let's take four zoo animals and give them each a personality tick. So we get a neurotic giraffe, a motherly hippo, a prima donna lion and a daydreaming zebra. The characters were about as two-dimensional as the CG was. Their relationships were introduced and really that is all we had. The dialogue was lacking and it felt like there was one scene that was just repeated over and over. It didn’t help the next item on our list: plot, or lack thereof.
The story was dull and poorly executed. By the time anything interesting was happening the audience was too bored to notice. It is a CG movie… the story/plot and the visuals are what need to be focused on. This movie kept dragging us along hoping that something was going to happen and when the credits started rolling we realized it just wasn’t going to happen. Don’t get me started on the lack of humor in this movie; I hope I never see another lemur again.
Again to emphasize: Plot, Visuals, and Humor. These are the three pinnacles with which an animated feature will succeed. Sadly Madagascar failed on all accounts. There were comical moments here and there but nothing to really get you into the movie. The visuals were far below something we should be seeing nowadays, and don’t get me wrong, I LOVE stylized films but this one did it at a severe reduction in quality. Conversation movies are great, I love Kevin Smith movies and the creative dialogue that happens between characters, but a quick note to anyone else ever making a CG feature… THESE MOVIES ARE NOT ABOUT THE DIALOGUE!!! Please oh please oh please do not waste your movie time nor the audiences by having the characters sitting there as their mouths move, it is boring, we want humor, we want visuals and we want a well defined plot that pulls us in and makes us really care about the characters.
I tend to be lenient on bad films but this one just keeps me from being able to do that. The only thing keeping me from leaving the theater was the guy sleeping in a chair between me and the aisle. I feel emotionally scarred by this movie.
I give it ½ out of 4 Gnomes.
Lets All Gnome to the Movies © 2005 by Dillgaar
All Rights Reserved