Penguins of Madagascar
(2014)
You’d think DreamWorks would have realised they
can rely on formulaic animated sequels for only so long before they have to come up with something new, but no.
Instead, their approach of milking properties until they run dry, and then
milking them some more, has blighted other studios’ approach (Pixar is spinning
off sequels to pretty much anything that can carry them, Universal has Despicable Me, Fox/Blue Sky is looking
forward to Ice Age 11). There’s surely
a point when even “indiscriminating” kids are going to realise they’re being
had, though. DreamWorks probably thought they had an easy win here, depositing their
popular penguins in their own spin-off vehicle. And just to prove their
thinking wasn’t necessarily wrong, Universal did exactly the same thing to the
tune of a $1bn worldwide gross with Minions
this year. So what went wrong? A dearth of anything innovative.
Of course, these things are relative. While
Penguins’ stateside haul was of underwhelming
Turbo proportions, it still made
nearly $400m worldwide, putting it above recent (relative) fizzlers like Rise of the Guardians, Megamind, Turbo and Mr. Peabody and
Sherman. Lest that be put down to “undiscerning” international audiences, this
year’s Home was notably not met with
the same enthusiasm; seen as a US hit, it only doubled that sum worldwide,
rather than the two or threefold studios are accustomed to with animations.
Thus, they failed to come in much higher than Penguins.
All told, things aren’t looking so hot for
the animation house right now, and they’re hoping Kung Fu Panda and The Croods
sequels will do the business. Trolls
– they’ll be looking for a Smurfs-esque
audience tie-in there – and Boss Baby
aren’t sure things. Their B.O.O. Bureau
of Otherworldy Operations is off the schedule so maybe the retooling is
currently in the realm of “unsalvageable”, while Puss in Boots and Madagascar
have second and fourth instalments planned.
I’m generally quite forgiving of DreamWorks
fare, though, increasingly so now Pixar is happy to turn out dreck like Cars. I’d rather watch speedy snail Turbo any day than Lightning McQueen.
And the first half hour of Madagascar 3
is up there with the best CG animation has delivered. Then there’s How to Train Your Dragon 2, proof that
sequels don’t have to be bereft of engaging and resonant content. Sadly,
though, Penguins is just plain lazy,
from conception through to its attempts to jiggery poke the finely tuned
mission microcapsules Skipper, Kowalski, Rico and Private engineered in in the Madagascars.
Eric Darnell, co-overseer of all three Madagascar movies, must share some of
the blame as co-director (the other being Simon J Smith of Bee Movie) for not recognising this wasn’t up to snuff. The rest goes to the five writers, who failed
to come up with anything remotely suited to the quartet’s particular appeal.
Two of them, Alan Schoolcraft, and Brent Simons, worked on Megamind, the substandard superhero affiliations of which this
reminded me most (that and the hard done by super villain of The Incredibles). That sub-genre is
currently over stuffed, with Despicable
Me also vying for that super hero/villain crown. Unless the conceit is
distinct, such fare just won’t stand out from the crowd. Feeble Machiavellian octopus
Dave (John Malkovich), who presents himself as human and has a serum to mutate
penguins – which he doesn’t like as he feels shunned because the foursome were
so popular back in the zoo and stole the limelight from him – is as bland a villain as they get.
Added to the mix, there’s a gang of
superspy animals, the North Wind, out to stop Dave and butting heads with the
penguins. They consist of a wolf (Classified, voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch,
who surely got paid well but could have been anyone doing it really), a seal, a
polar ear and an owl (which Kowalski falls for). Again, it’s not that this sort
of thing can’t be plundered for laughs, but everyone is doing it at the moment,
and what we get is moribund.
There was more potential early on, when it
looked like the penguins were robbing Fort Knox. Unfortunately, they were just
after some hard-to-get Cheezy Dibbles snack food. Committing felonies seems
much more the sort of thing these can-do guys should be doing, rather than
being turned into mutant penguins or a parent-child relationship being fostered
between Skipper and Private. That’s the danger of a spin-off; you end up
softening characters that were appealing for their lack of moral compass (if
the lemurs had their own movie, you can bet King Louis – here not voiced by
Sacha Baron Cohen – would have a heart of gold).
The best moment of black comedy, the kind
of thing Darnell and Smith should have been indulging, comes in the prologue,
as the young penguins (there’s always a flashback with these things, naturally)
are intentionally knocked off an ice cliff by a documentary film crew (lead by
the voice of Werner Herzog!) in order to get some prize footage. Following this,
the madcap adventuring turns decidedly pedestrian, including poo (courtesy of a
chemical toilet) and Kevin Bacon gags (“Kevin,
bake on”) and Planet of the Apes
references that also reference Madagascar
by virtue of it including Planet of the
Apes references (“You maniac, you
blew him up”).
Is anyone going to care about Kung Fu Panda 3, arriving in January? Its
last instalment experienced diminishing returns (it made a bit more than the
original, but was creatively bankrupt) and there have been rumours of
production problems. For sake of DreamWorks stocks, they’d better hope it isn’t
another Penguins of Madagascar.
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