Madagascar

Marty the Zebra (voiced by Rock) lives in New York's Central Park zoo, but pines for the wilds of his ancestral home - Africa. Inspired by a platoon of tunnelling penguins, Marty breaks out of the zoo and heads for - well, upstate New York. A hop, skip and logic-defying jump later, and Marty and his friends Alex the lion (Stiller), Melman the giraffe (Schwimmer) and Gloria the hippo wash up on the shores of Madagascar. It's a paradise for Marty, but Alex - the pampered star attraction at the zoo - hates life in the wild. And that's before Alex reverts back to his more animal state, and realises he should be hunting Marty down. A Dreamworks animation tale, this has everything you've come to expect from the makers of Shrek and Shark Tale - pop-culture in-jokes, cinematic references (from The Mission to American Beauty), nudge-nudge adult asides, and day-glo colours rendered in superbly realised animation. And, if you can get past the cutesy anthropomorphism, there's a slightly darker edge to Madagascar than is strictly necessary, including snakes and crocs chowing down on friendly little furry animals and a Lord of the Flies-style 'innate savage' sub-plot. Unfortunately, The Incredibles set a pretty high standard for this kind of thing, and while Madagascar is an enjoyable slice of hokum that is beautiful to look at, it fails to clear the bar.