There are enough sight gags and silly jokes in Penguins of Madagascar to make children laugh. But a generation-spanning film, this one isn't.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jan 9, 2017

The jokes are never-ending and multilayered, calculated so that adults do not get bored -- which is important, because they buy the tickets. It's all bolted together with precision and good humour, although not much whimsy.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 7, 2015

Children will probably enjoy them and the animation is of a high standard. More wit and less frenetic action might have given the film more appeal to parents.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 7, 2015

Like Benedict Cumberbatch's unique pronunciation of the word "penguin", the result remains oddly entertaining.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 7, 2014

The animation is good enough but never remarkable. The story is satisfactory, if short on imagination. But the jokes are magnificent throughout.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 6, 2014

Penguins of Madagascar is an unexpected pleasure, a 3D kids' animated feature that combines a wildly inventive visual style with enough in-jokes and self-reflexive references to keep film- loving adults happy, too.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 4, 2014

An amusing voice cameo from Werner Herzog sets the comedy bar high, but although the high-energy hi-jinks thrill the younger members of the audience, there is less to engage their accompanying adults.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 4, 2014

At last: they're upgraded to the starring roles they deserved all along.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 4, 2014

The beginning of Penguins of Madagascar is so funny it makes you almost weep.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 4, 2014

The silliest spin-off this side of Elektra, and lots of fun with it.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 4, 2014

As memorable as the 5384th Cheese Dibble you ate.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Dec 4, 2014

This is not high art, but it is highly entertaining.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 4, 2014

Frantic and silly.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 2, 2014

Penguins Of Madagascar itself seems like a plot to train kids to like the blockbusters of tomorrow, priming them through sensory overload.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 1, 2014

Following the absurd humour and Red Bull energy of series peak Europe's Most Wanted, Penguins Of Madagascar is just a deflated return to the franchise's blah beginnings.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 27, 2014

These penguins really are cute, the animation is consistently appealing, and the movie is obviously bound for megamoolah at the box office.

| Nov 26, 2014

Thanksgiving is a time for family and for shirking work, and out of respect for both traditions-and in recognition that I am surely not in the movie's demographic sweet spot-I'm handing the heavy lifting over to my kids, Tom (11) and Alexandra (9).

| Nov 26, 2014

"Penguins of Madagascar" is a passible, inoffensive addition to DreamWorks Animation's canon, even if there's a faint whiff of a North Wind spin-off sullying the contained story.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 26, 2014

Directors Eric Darnell and Simon J. Smith keep up a headlong pace -- if one joke or sight gag misfires, there'll be another one soon.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 26, 2014

Leaving the cute to the bigger kids on the block, with this movie, Dreamworks is opting for pure crazy. And sure enough, the strategy, this time anyway, has paid off in the most unnatural dividend imaginable: darned if these penguins don't fly.

| Nov 26, 2014