Madagascar 2 Escape to Africa

Still together. Still making us laugh.

Madagascar returns to the silver screen this week after three long years.

The sequel to the often underrated 2005 catches up with Alex the Lion (Ben Stiller) and his furry friends where the last film left off.

Desperate to go home to their zoo in New York Alex, Marty the Zebra, Gloria the Hippo and Melman the Giraffe board a plane built and piloted by four psychotic penguins...as you will have already guessed that spells trouble right from takeoff, the result of which sees the animals crash landing on an African nature reserve.

Alex makes the highly improbable revelation of finding his parents from whom he was separated as a cub before washing up in New York, Marty finds a million Zebras who are all exactly identical to him, Gloria falls in love, Melman thinks he's going to die and the penguins run amok stealing jeeps and abandoning tourists in the savanna...

Kids may be left a little disappointed by the lack of visual gags in Dreamworks latest offering but they will be too mesmerized by talking animals to even notice. And the older kids, namely the adults will not be disappointed either.

Although a million Zebra's all possessing the same voice as Chris Rock does get quite unbearably after a while and you may end up wishing that you were deafer than a dead parrot.

But if you want to take your kids to a film that even you will enjoy this winter holiday then this is definitely one of the few even adults will enjoy.