Weekly Penguin

Weekly Penguin 399

You knew it was coming! It's BluRay of the first feature length movie based on everyone's favourite penguin commando team, Penguins of Madagascar! While the film follows directly from Madagascar 3, seeing any of the previous films or the (really good) TV series isn't necessary; this is pretty much a stand-alone experience.

The story is appropriately bonkers; it's the birthday of Private, the designated mascot of the team. And to celebrate, the penguins break into Fort Knox. Not to steal gold, mind you, but to munch of Cheezy Dibbles, a rare delicacy cheese chips. From there the team stumbles across an epic spy-fi battle between Dr. Octavius Brine and The North Wind, an animal spy organization led by Agent Classified (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch). The story moves forward at an insane speed and before you know it, the whole world as we know it is at stake. At least everything we here at Penguin DT appreciate in this world.

Is the film great? Of course it is. Only complaint one might have is that it's very ADHD in both pace and structure, to the point of being exhausting. I think it's kind of the charm of the whole thing; the moment you think you know where things are headed, something nuts happens and the film switches lanes. However, if you want your animations to methodically build ambience and character – or even just sit still for a while – this is not your film. Yet, if you love the Penguins of Madagascar, it's a must see.

Fear not, I'm not going to spoil anything, but I have to say something non-spoilery about the film's ending. All I'll say is that when you see where the villain's evil plot goes, remember; we started making TAGAP 3 in 2011 and released the first screenshots in 2012 so no, we didn't get any ideas from this film. And I'm not saying DreamWorks got their ideas from us, either – it's just the case of 'greatly penguin obsessed minds think alike'. Besides, now I want all those "when-you-see-the-film-you-know-whats" as plush toys, too!

Added: 2015-04-07