Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa continues the story of four zoo animals from New York's Central Park: Alex the lion, Marty the zebra, Melman the giraffe and Gloria the hippo. Stranded on Madagascar, they long to get home, and the penguins put together a plan by patching up a crashed airplane. The repaired craft takes off but comes down far short of America, landing the group in the African wilderness. There they meet others of their own kind for the first time, and Alex is reunited with a family he was separated from long ago. The question of whether Africa suits them better than the zoo runs through the adventure.

Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath directed, both returning from the 2005 first film and working from a screenplay they wrote with Etan Cohen. Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer and Jada Pinkett Smith reprise their voice roles, with Sacha Baron Cohen as Julien and Cedric the Entertainer as Maurice. The film sits third in Darnell's directing filmography and second in McGrath's, both counting five titles in all.

DreamWorks Animation produced with Paramount and Pacific Data Images on a budget of 150 million dollars, and the film took about 604 million dollars worldwide, a strong return. On IMDb it holds 6.7/10 from roughly 269,000 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 6.5/10 from far fewer votes. A film critics' rating of 5.9/10 from 154 reviews places it below both audience scores.