Penguins of Madagascar

Animated children's movies have to walk a fine line between entertaining the kid's that they are aimed at and not boring the parents who have to take them. But what happens when one of these movies tip ever so slightly in the favour of the parents? Whilst I'm not saying that Penguins of Madagascar will bore kids, the adult to child joke ratio has just a few more adult jokes in there.

The elite unit of penguins, Skipper (Tom McGrath), Kowalski (Chris Miller), Rico (Conrad Vernon) and Private (Christopher Knights), break into Fort Knox to steal the last remaining packets of Cheese Dibbles, their favourite snack. Here they are kidnapped by Dave (John Malkovich), an evil penguin who has it in for the penguins. They are rescued by the North Wind, another elite team (who are just better funded) led by grey wolf Agent Classified (Benedict Cumberbatch).

This movie has plenty of silly escapades that will keep the kids happy; a gondola chase through Venice, the penguins falling out of a plane looking for a soft landing and many more jokes along this line, but there are some just hilarious ones for adults too. The first five minutes of the film is a nature documentary narrated by Werner Herzog (who breaks the fourth wall and appears as part of a documentary crew), the break into Fort Knox is lifted perfectly from Goldfinger and Dave gives his squid minions orders by naming celebrities ("Hugh, Jack, man the cannons" and "Drew, Barry, more power" are especially good examples).

The voice talents of some big names also make the film enjoyable and its fun to try and guess who they are. John Malkovich is an obvious one (as I have said in the past). Benedict Cumberbatch makes his third appearance in a big end of the year movie and plays his part superbly, as do Ken Jeong, Annet Mahendru and Peter Stormare who voice the remainder of the North Wind.

Verdict: A great movie to watch with or without kids, if only to hear Benedict Cumberbatch repeatedly say pengwings, as he can't pronounce it properly.