Animated but not moving enough

The pleasant but far-from-pioneering crew of DreamWorks Animation's 2005 hit Madagascar reunite for Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa.

Each major zoo-raised animals has a comic issue that must get resolved before the credits roll in 89 minutes. The film, like its predecessor, is aimed mainly at children and should score a direct hit.

Fun carried forward

The situation at the end of the first film was this: Alex the performing lion (Ben Stiller), Marty the wisecracking zebra (Chris Rock), Melman the sensitive giraffe (David Schwimmer) and Gloria the ghetto-fabulous hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith), all refugees from the US Central Park Zoo, are stranded in Madagascar.

The tough-guy penguins, who came along uninvited, have now taken over an old crashed aircraft to fly back home, which gets as far as the central plains of Africa, where it again crashes.

The wreck reunites Alex with his dad Zuba (the late Bernie Mac) and mum (Sherri Shepherd).

This sparks his dad's rival, Makunga (Alec Baldwin), to demand that the son perform the rites of passage to be allowed to stay in the pride.

But Alex performs a dance number from his zoo days, which results in his being banished from the pride, as “real lions'' don't dance.

On the other hand, Marty discovers that all zebras look, sound and act exactly like him and worries how his best pal Alex can tell him from the herd. Alex can't and this leaves Marty angry.

Interspecies romance

Again, the giraffe turns out to be madly in love with the hippo. Other characters return from the original film, including the party-hearty lemurs and the vicious old lady with martial arts moves — as do the pop songs from Barry Manilow to Ennio Morricone, which put a goofy spin on all the action.

Cartoons can get away with being skilful without much creativity. This movie surfs on such waves, entertaining youngsters while only mildly amusing adults.