Being a fan of the first movie I couldn't wait to see what they did with the sequel. Well, I should admit something. The penguins are all that I'm really interested in. They are what I find the funniest bits. The other characters are funny and all, but they're no penguins.

The beginning starts with a nice news footage montage to get you up to speed on our story so far. It was a good way of recounting everything without force feeding anything on people who haven't seen the first movie. Plus it gives the back story as to how Alex, the lion, managed to find himself at the New York City Zoo. For the most part the reasoning works and not much of a stretch. Regardless of your experience with the first movie you should be able to understand what's going on.

So, our heroes are still in Madagascar dreaming of getting back to New York. The penguins have hatched a plot to rebuild an old plane and shoot it into the air via a large slingshot to escape the island. The usual characters are involved including some natives of the island who wish to go with them.

I really liked the first twenty minutes or so of the movie since it mostly revolved around the penguins flying and then later landing (well, sorta) the plane. There were some other jokes and foreshadowing with the other characters but they can't compete with the penguins.

They have found themselves in Africa where Marty, the zebra, had been wanting to go in the first place. This is where the Lion King ripoff really kicks in. Oh wait, I'll give just a little bit away. The reason Alex ended up in the zoo is because a bad lion, think Scar, wanted to be king and used the King's son, Alex, to try to get rid of him. The plan failed but Alex was lost.

Now Alex has returned and everyone realizes the true heir to King is now home. Evil lion doesn't like that very much and tricks Alex into following his plan to get the King banished. If you have seen Lion King then you pretty much know most of this. I won't bother to continue.

Marty has a funny storyline when he realizes that every zebra in the area is just like him. They look the same, sound the same and even do the same tricks. Marty is then devastated when his friends can't tell him apart from the other zebras. He then acts like a big baby until later when he steps up to help Alex.

Gloria, the hippo, has a rather boring storyline and probably didn't even need to be in the film other than to play a weird love interest.

Melman, the giraffe, has some funny parts where he learns that his hypochondria makes him the perfect doctor for all the animals. Until the other giraffes, who also are hypochondriacs, convince him he's going to die. Which isn't a stretch since he's always thought that. This leads him to attempt to sacrifice himself for his new friends and his one true love that he's had all his life. He's always been too scared to approach her and now he comes to terms with his strange attraction even though he's about to die.

Oops, I think I gave something away there.

During all this the really funny parts are the penguins. They've decided to steal tourist jeeps in an effort to rebuild the plane. But they have to recruit the local monkeys to help because only monkeys have the opposable thumbs necessary to complete the task. Apparently having such thumbs also gives you the inherent skills necessary for building a plane from scratch with parts scrounged from stolen tourist jeeps.

The penguins attempting to bust up the newly formed monkey's union is a short funny scene.

During this time the tourists, who by some strange coincidence came from New York, have decided to build a camp in the jungle to survive. Some of their choices have negative consequences on the animals and therefore gives Alex a chance to redeem himself.

There are parts with King Julien, of the lemurs, that is really outrageously funny. For example, while the animals have decided to attempt his plan to appease the volcano gods he tells them to hurry before they come to their senses. He's crazy, he knows it and he revels in it.

In the end everything works out as you would expect. It's a good movie that builds on what works from the first movie, mostly more penguins, and dumps what didn't work.

But hey, Anya liked it and that's all that counts.