2hotFeature one of my absolute favorites!

LouHomey From my favorite movies..

Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Prismark10 Merry Madagascar is a made for television special that sees the zoo animals trying to escape Madagascar and get back to their zoo in New York before Christmas.They try to escape by a hot air balloon which is shot down by King Julius and his band of lemurs who mistake them for the Red night goblin.This is because every year on December 24th someone flies through the sky showering coals at Julius. Alex the lion shoots down this villain and discover that its is Santa Claus and he now has amnesia.Alex and the gang have to save Christmas by delivering the presents and reindeer's and penguins need to put their old rivalry aside.The animation short, it is only about 20 minutes long and is a festive cash in but their is enough pizazz in the story to keep the young ones interested with a dash of Romeo and Juliet thrown in as the penguins with the help of magic dust help the animals deliver the presents.The animation is rather vanilla but good enough for a television special and DVD extra.

Michael_Elliott Merry Madagascar (2009) *** (out of 4) Fun short has Santa Claus being shot down on an island and is struck with amnesia. Not being able to deliver the presents, the Madagascar gang offers to do it for him because not only do they want to save Christmas but they too want to get back home. This isn't the greatest film ever made but if you enjoyed the features then it's probably a safe bet that you're going to enjoy this. I think the producers made a very good choice in making this a short because there's no way the story could have supported a feature of its own. I think there are some very interesting ideas and jokes scattered throughout the film, although at the same time I will admit that not all of the jokes work. I think the highlight of the film is when Santa's reindeer get ready to do battle with the penguins because originally Santa was doing his business from the South Pole. This was a smart and funny joke that's clearly the best moment of the film. Other highlights include the gang trying to deliver gifts and the first house and its accident is certainly funny. At just around 20-minutes the film moves along well enough and is worth watching during the holidays.

Robert Dreamworks usually sucks at making movies, but now they seem to fail at making Christmas specials.I mean, Christmas time is the perfect time to make a Christmas short, but this one just sucked. It was the typical Santa Claus with give not get messages in it. Plus the jokes weren't that great, there was a lot of side distractions (really? Penguin and Cupid?) as well as just plain old inappropriate "take advantage of Santa" moments.I know that you cannot mention Christ in anything these days, for fear of offending people, but if you don't mention Christ, then it really isn't a Christmas special, rather it's a holiday special.But I give them a 5 for effort.

TheLittleSongbird I enjoyed the Madagascar movies and I love The Penguins of Madagascar, so I naturally wanted to see this festive special. And overall, I enjoyed it very much and even preferred it marginally over the movies. I admit I wasn't keen on the animation of Santa and one or two characters are a little bland, but overall it was very enjoyable, with a nice heart warming story and some very funny writing from especially the Penguins and King Julien(who almost steals the show throughout).The animation is nice, vibrant and colourful and the music is great, I especially liked King Julien's take on Santa Claus is Coming to Town, that was funny. The characters in general are fine, Melman isn't given much to do, same with some of the reindeer, but I loved the Penguins and King Julien and Alex and Gloria were nice to watch. And the voice acting is top notch. Merry Madagascar also moves quickly so it never feels boring. Overall, thoroughly enjoyable and kept me amused constantly. 8/10 Bethany Cox