Penguins of Madagascar
Penguins of Madagascar is a 2014 American animated spy comedy film directed by Eric Darnell and Simon J. Smith, and written by Michael Colton, John Aboud, and Brandon Sawyer. A spin-off of the Madagascar film series, it was produced by DreamWorks Animation. The film features the voices of Tom McGrath, Chris Miller, Christopher Knights, Conrad Vernon, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ken Jeong, Annet Mahendru, Peter Stormare and John Malkovich. It takes place after the events of Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted and follows the Penguins as they join forces with the North Wind intelligence agency to stop the octopus Dave who seeks revenge on penguins for upstaging him at zoos and aquariums. The score was composed by Lorne Balfe.
Penguins of Madagascar was released theatrically in the United States on November 26, 2014, by 20th Century Fox. The film received mixed reviews from critics. Despite grossing $374 million on a $132 million budget, the film underperformed by DreamWorks' standards. Along with Mr. Peabody & Sherman earlier that year, it lost the studio $57 million.
Plot
In Antarctica, penguin chicks Skipper, Rico, and Kowalski rescue an egg from leopard seals on an abandoned whaling ship and are sent on an iceberg. When the egg hatches, the trio adopt the chick as their brother, Private.Ten years later, Circus Zaragoza is continuing their American tour in Kentucky. The penguins leave to celebrate Private's birthday by breaking into Fort Knox to get Cheesy Dibbles from a vending machine, despite Private's wish of being recognized as a meaningful and valued team member. The penguins are subsequently kidnapped and taken to a submarine in Venice, where they meet Dave, a Giant Pacific octopus who was once an attraction at the Central Park Zoo until they upstaged him when they arrived. After being repeatedly transferred between numerous zoos and aquariums around the world, continuously upstaged by penguins, Dave disguised himself as a human scientist named Dr. Octavius Brine to enact his revenge. Rico swallows a vial of Dave's snow globe collection from every zoo and aquarium that he was transferred to and his chemical, the Medusa Serum before the penguins escape.
Fleeing through Venice while pursued by Dave's octopus henchmen, the penguins are rescued by the North Wind, an inter-species intelligence agency consisting of a Eurasian wolf leader whose name is classified, polar bear muscle Corporal, harp seal demolitionist Short Fuse, and snowy owl intelligence analyst Eva. The penguins show the North Wind the Medusa Serum, but Dave calls to reveal he actually has much more serum. The North Wind gets alerts of Dave kidnapping captive penguins around the world. Deeming Skipper's team a liability to the mission, Classified tranquilizes them and puts them on a plane bound for a North Wind safe house in Madagascar.
The penguins escape the plane, and, using Dave's snow globes, realize Dave targets every zoo and aquarium he was kicked out of, with the Shanghai Zoo as his next target. The penguins forms a plan to stop Dave, and Private reluctantly agrees to be the bait. They manage to trap Dave with a dinosaur skeleton just as the North Wind shows up. Dave escapes through a drain and captures the Shanghai penguins along with Private. Skipper, Rico, and Kowalski hijack the North Wind's jet to pursue him. At Dave's lair, Private learns that Dave plans to use the Medusa Serum to turn penguins into monsters for the public to hate and exterminate.
Upon reaching Dave's hideout, the penguins and the North Wind clash over their different plans to infiltrate the submarine, before Skipper relents and goes with the North Wind's plan. The penguins distract the octopus guards while the North Wind sneak inside, but both teams are captured. Dave tests the Medusa Serum on Private, but he escapes using a paper clip he swallowed earlier, unbeknownst to everyone present, who believe Private has been vaporized. Private finds and frees the North Wind, but they refuse to help without their equipment, so Private goes alone.
As Dr. Brine, Dave unleashes the mutated penguins on New York City. Private obtains Dave's ray, finds Skipper, Rico, and Kowalski, and restores their sanity. As the penguins and the North Wind battle Dave and his henchmen, Private inserts himself into Dave's ray, using the power of his cuteness to restore the other penguins. This caused Private to gain a magenta purple hue, as well as spots and antlers, and Dave was shrunk and trapped inside one of his snow globes, which Skipper gives to a little girl. Skipper deems Private the most meaningful and valued member of the team, to the approval of the North Wind, who give the penguins jetpacks.
In a mid-credit scene, the penguins returned to the circus and used Dave's machine to return Private to normal, using Mort as the power source. It works and Mort remains the same, outwardly, but is able to devour King Julien in one gulp.
Voice cast
- Tom McGrath as Skipper, the leader of the Adélie penguins.
- Conrad Vernon as Rico, the "special" penguin in the group that is creepily obsessed with big booms. Vernon replaces John DiMaggio as the voice of Rico in the film.
- Chris Miller as Kowalski, the dedicated status reporter.
- Christopher Knights as Private, the mild-mannered eager rookie of the Adélie penguins.
- Benedict Cumberbatch as Agent Classified, a Eurasian wolf and the North Wind's team leader. Classified is not his real name, but a nickname Skipper gives him when former tells the latter that his name is classified information.
- Ken Jeong as Short Fuse, a Belgian white-furred harp seal and a member of the North Wind who serves as their expert in pyrotechnics and demolitions.
- Annet Mahendru as Eva, a Russian snowy owl with a matching accent, Kowalski's love interest/girlfriend, and the North Wind's intelligence analyst.
- Peter Stormare as Corporal, a Norwegian polar bear and a member of the North Wind who serves as the muscle.
- John Malkovich as Dave / Dr. Octavius Brine, a villainous and disgruntled giant Pacific octopus who has a human scientist disguise and has a one-sided grudge against penguins. He wants revenge on all penguins across Earth for being upstaged by them at international zoos.
- Andy Richter as Mort, a Goodman's mouse lemur and King Julien's biggest fan.
- Danny Jacobs as King Julien XIII, a ring-tailed lemur who is the king of Madagascar. Jacobs reprises his role from The Penguins of Madagascar and replaces Sacha Baron Cohen from the films.
- Werner Herzog as Himself
Production
At the July 2012 Comic-Con, DreamWorks Animation announced that the film, then titled The Penguins of Madagascar, would be released in 2015. Bob Schooley, one of the developers of The Penguins of Madagascar series on Nickelodeon, said that the film would be unrelated to the eponymous TV series, but added that could always change. In early September 2012, 20th Century Fox—the studio's then new distributor—and DreamWorks Animation announced the film's release date of March 27, 2015 and a new team of screenwriters for the film, Michael Colton and John Aboud. Benedict Cumberbatch and John Malkovich joined the cast in August 2013. Cumberbatch, cast as the wolf team leader Agent Classified, reportedly underwent vocal coaching to refine an American accent for the role. Malkovich, who had been offered the role of Dr. Octavius Brine three and a half years before the film's release, told an audience at the July 2014 Comic-Con that he thought that it "was a funny idea" to use his voice for an octopus.
The production employed a different animation pipeline from the Madagascar trilogy. Although the characters originated in CG animation, the team aimed for a more stylized, dynamic tone to match the film's espionage-parody narrative. Director Simon J. Smith stated that visual pacing and comic timing were influenced by classic spy films and slapstick animation. Unlike the TV series, which was produced in partnership with Nickelodeon, the film's animation was done primarily at PDI/DreamWorks in Redwood City, California.
This is the final DreamWorks Animation film to be produced by PDI/DreamWorks before its closure on January 22, 2015, with DreamWorks Animation Glendale taking over until 2024, when the studio decided to shift away from fully animating its film in-house and rely more on outsourcing from outside studios. Internally, the project was viewed as high-risk. At the time of its release, financial analysts speculated that the film's performance could affect DreamWorks Animation's valuation, as the studio was in talks with potential buyers. In addition to cost management concerns, shifting release dates led to marketing complications; the film's original March 2015 date was moved forward to November 26, 2014, replacing Home, which was delayed to 2015. According to Morgan Stanley analyst Benjamin Swinburne, the accelerated release schedule may have impacted box office traction, though he projected the film could still be modestly profitable.