The good, the bad and the really bad

I've decided my eight-year-old son is my animation polar opposite.

When we were trying to pick out a movie on Friday night for movie night, it was his younger brother's turn to pick. Of course, the older one never misses an opportunity to try to influence a situation with his words. (Shrewdly, if successful, this would get him two picks in a row, as this would technically be his brother's choice.)

"I'd watch anything Madagascar," he said to his brother. "Anything Madagascar is good."

This is a guy who, just moments earlier, turned his nose up, with prejudice, at The Lion King -- a movie with a lot of the same subject matter, only good. As I've told you before, he also claims to hate Toy Story and Finding Nemo, though I was at least encouraged that it was the younger one who vetoed Wall-E, which the older one would have been willing to watch.

Still, as a general principle, the eight-year-old seems to be Team Dreamworks while I am Team Disney/Pixar.

Sigh.

It's not that I don't like any Dreamworks films, because that's certainly not the case. However, my typical relationship with Dreamworks is to see the first in every series of films and leave their umpteen sequels unwatched. Even the good ones, like Kung Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon. (Actually, I saw the second How to Train Your Dragon but not yet the third.) To be fair, I may be conflating multiple different non-Disney/Pixar animation studios here, as the prime example of this is Ice Age, which is Blue Sky, not Dreamworks.

The original Madagascar had been the poster boy for what I think Dreamworks does wrong with its movies. Too manic, too many characters getting hit in the head by falling objects. You don't need me to elaborate. You've seen these movies.

Anyway, I greatly disliked Madagascar and make a habit of commenting on my dislike for it whenever it comes up in conversation. I wear that dislike almost as a badge of honor.

Over the years, though, people I trust have diminished some of my bluster about Madagascar. Having liked the first movie well enough, they shouldn't have held any sway over me at all. But these are people whose tastes are otherwise trustworthy, and they seem to have an especial fondness for Madagascar 3, the one with the circus afros. Which, by the way, is not a good standout detail to know about a movie.

On Friday night, I felt like it was maybe time to give the Madagascar series another shot, so indeed, we queued up Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. (Wait, isn't Madagascar the country actually in Africa? Or off its coast anyway?)

Ugh.

Instead of rejuvenating the potential of the series, the second Madagascar killed it dead where it stood. I didn't figure it was possible to like it less than I liked Madagascar, but that sure was the case. The vocal performances are annoying (a big complaint I had with the first), the jokes are unfunny, the heartwarming storylines are utterly perfunctory, and the hitting on the head is plentiful, at least metaphorically if not actually.

Consulting Letterboxd, I see I gave the original two stars out of five, at least as a retroactive assessment of my feelings toward it when I started on Letterboxd in early 2012. The sequel? I gave it only half that, making it the rare animated movie to get only a single star from me. (Off the top of my head, I can think of only two others: All Dogs Go to Heaven and The Nut Job.)

I'm not going to further deconstruct my dislike for Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, but I did want to give one more thing that I think is dumb about it: It has way too many silly side characters. Following in Despicable Me's footsteps -- or is it the other way around? -- these movies have their minions in the form of the penguins. However, then they also have King Julien and his sidekick. And there are also two posh monkeys who are like Statler and Waldorf on the Muppets. Predictably, it's way too much.

I also wanted to explain the meaning of my subject for this post, because there was a funny coincidence to this viewing.

As you will recall, I only just watched The Good, the Bad and the Ugly for the first time on Wednesday night. I watched Moneyball in between, but Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa made for the second consecutive new-to-me movie featuring Ennio Morricone's iconic theme song from the Leone western.

"The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" -- also the name of the song -- plays a couple times during the film, whenever this elderly New York tourist on safari shows up on screen. See, in typical Dreamworks fashion, she's a fightin' granny who tussles with Alex, the lion voiced by Ben Stiller. As the music reminds us of a much, much, much, much, much, much (catch your breath) much better movie, she delivers roundhouse kicks to Alex and says "Bad kitty."

Really bad indeed.