Penguins Of Madagascar

"The Penguins of Madagascar" is a spin-off of the Madagascar films franchise, and a sequel to "Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted," pretty much picking up where that film left off, but focusing the adventures of the four penguins: Skipper, Rico, Kowalski, and Private. For those of you who aren't big fans of Nickelodeon, a TV series by the same name is the second most popular animated series on television, and the first Nicktoon produced with DreamWorks Animation. But the movie has little in common with the TV show.

Starting off in the frozen tundra as children, the penguins -- Skipper (Tom McGrath), Kowalski (Chris Miller) and Rico (Conrad Vernon) -- have their first death-defying adventure saving an egg that turns out to be Private (Christopher Knights). But this is only the first in a long series of crazy, disjointed adventures that happen around the world 10 years later (although, oddly enough, hardly ever in Madagascar). Primarily, the story revolves around the fact that little Private never feels like he's a member of the team.

Private isn't very efficient when the penguins are first captured by Dr. Octavius Brine (John Malkovich), a mega-villain octopus also known as Dave. But neither are any of the penguins, according to an elite force of secret agents who call themselves North Wind. The handsome British grey wolf Classified (Benedict Cumberbatch), the disgruntled harp seal Short Fuse (Ken Jeong), the Norwegian polar bear Corporal (Peter Stormare) and the lovely Russian snowy owl Eva (Annet Mahendru) have come into the picture to save the penguins, whom they believe to be hopeless little creatures.

After Private's kidnapped and presumed dead, he works on his own to save hundreds of stolen penguins, including his friends, from being turned into monsters, therefore becoming an asset to the penguin tribe.

Reliably silly and fast-paced, this animated film doesn't slow down long enough to make you think twice, and there is some very funny humor for adults woven into the film. (I'm a fan of any penguin who uses "Parker Posey" as an expletive.) But ultimately, it makes you miss, and long for, the really great Dreamworks animated classics.

In addition to a thrilling High Definition transcoding, this Blu-ray includes a host of special features like the stylized featurette "Top-Secret Guide to Becoming an Elite Agent," four music videos, a deleted scene, four funny animated spots and a gallery. There is no 'making-of' featurette and we never go behind the scenes to look at how the animation is made or talk to the actors, save for the fact that the deleted scene is an animatic. (It's debatable whether this is actually a deleted scene or if it's created to be a special feature.) As for the music videos, even though you have popular songs like Pitbull's "Celebrate," the James Bond music inspired "He is Dave" steals the show.

"Penguins of Madagascar"
Blu-ray + DVD + Digital HD
Rated PG / 92 min.
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