Seldom in the history of animation sequels ( Shrek excluded)  does the sequel even justify it's existence.  In Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, it is actually better than the original. 

Many of the original cast are back like  David Schwimmer     the voice of Melman , Sacha Baron Cohen the voice of King Julien ( who actually plays a bigger role and really gets a lot of the laughs in the movie) , Ben Stiller the voice of Alex,  Chris Rock the voice of Marty has a fantastic role in this movie, and  Jada Pinkett-Smith     the voice of Gloria.  Our story starts in Africa where Alex is only a baby cub lion and through a series of events is captured and taken to America and raised in the zoo.  Then coming backing to Madagascar where the the last movie left off, we see the penguins have high jacked parts of vehicles to help make an old broken down plane fly again and they are heading for America.  The plane sputters and crash lands in Africa, and of course is in the same area as Alex was born.  From here we start to see some real comedy develop in the differences from New York and the wilds of Africa.  So it is kind of a "roots" saga with each member learning more about him or herself and learning to trust and keep friends, reining family relationships etc.  On the real side it is a hilarious romp and rip of stereotypes with some very pertinent lessons in life.  If you have small children you'll be glad you took them or they talked you into going!  After some trails and tribulations a bad guy or two there is a happy ending so there will be only sweet fond dreams.  Very entertaining and a good diversion.
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