MADAGASCAR: ESCAPE TO AFRICA
A hilarious, heartwarming sequel celebrating love, family, and forgiveness.
Should You Watch It?
You can take your family to this sequel with confidence that the entertainment value is real. The movie is hilarious and heartwarming, with excellent production quality, a solid script, and well-rounded characters who grow through love, friendship, family, self-sacrifice, and forgiveness.
The movie does ask for discernment. Some scatological humor, pratfalls, action violence, and light crude references may trouble parents of younger children. There are also comic pagan and occult elements involving a witch doctor and a volcano sacrifice to water gods.
If your children are old enough for those concerns, this is a worthwhile choice. WORTH THE TRIP — MIDDLE SCHOOL AND UP is the practical answer.
The Story
NO SPOILERS — WE KEEP THE SURPRISESAlex, Marty, Gloria, Melman, and the penguins are still stranded in Madagascar when the penguins restore an old plane for a daring escape to New York. After a series of mishaps, the zoo-raised animals crash-land in Africa, where they encounter species of their own kind for the first time.
As they adjust to this new world, the animals face challenges involving family, friendship, identity, and a local watering hole that begins to dry up.
Is It Any Good?
Four stars means this is a top-quality family entertainment choice. The writers, directors, and cast successfully continue the characters’ adventures while making them more well-rounded. The movie combines laugh-out-loud moments with redemptive elements and positive moral values.
The production quality is excellent, and the script is solid. Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, Jada Pinkett Smith, and David Schwimmer do a superb job voicing the main characters. The movie also lives up to the expectations set by the first film.
The Worldview
The movie strongly celebrates Christian principles, including self-sacrifice, honesty, friendship, love, forgiveness, marriage, loyalty, and courage. Its characters learn to value family, accept the ways that differences can enrich a group, and act for the good of others.
The film also includes light pagan and occult elements. One character becomes a witch doctor, and the animals consider a sacrifice in a volcano to water gods when the watering hole dries up. These ideas are treated humorously and ridiculously, but they still call for discernment.
The movie includes light homosexual elements and allusions, though the implications about one animal are refuted by that character’s love for a female animal. Overall, the film’s moral vision is strongly positive, even as these elements keep it from being entirely uncomplicated for younger viewers.
The film’s emphasis on forgiveness and love connects with Scripture’s call to believers: “forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive” (Colossians 3:13).
The Content Guide
The specifics — spoilers included by nature — so you can judge for your own family.
Content Summary
Strong moral worldview with Christian principles extolling self-sacrifice, honesty, friendship, love, forgiveness, marriage, loyalty, and courage, but marred by some light pagan, occult elements when one of the main characters becomes the witch doctor for the other animals and the animals choose to make a sacrifice in a volcano to the water gods, but this is represented in a humorous and ridiculous way, plus light homosexual elements such as animals make comments implying that another animal is a homosexual but these implications are refuted by that animal’s character and his love for a female animal, a male monkey kisses a male penguin, male animal pretends another male animal is a female in order to show him how to profess his love; five light obscenities such as “butt,” “freaks,” “suck ups” and “fuzz buckets”; mild pratfalls, scatological and action violence such as two animals pick their noses and then feed each other, two animals fight each other to establish dominance, animal gets his head thrown into a rock, animal gets shot in the ear with a gun and falls off of a truck, animal gets into a fist fight with an old woman, animals try to run over an old woman with a jeep, animals are attacked by hungry humans who want to eat them, humans try to roast animal over a fire, animals get squashed and kicked, animal is attacked by hungry shark, animals take pratfalls, animals slam into a wooden dam, animals spit, animal threatens other animals with a knife; light crude sexual allusions, some with homosexual elements, such as animal cross-dresses and says, “I am a woman, which of you is attracted to me?”, animal mentions wanting to enter a “breeding program,” animal has a fetish in which he is attracted to a Hawaiian dancing bobble doll, human gives CPR to animal calling it “the kiss of life,” animal describes another animal as being very “big,” animal asks for his nuts to be brought to him on a silver platter on a plane ride; no nudity; animal staggers around after a party before passing out; no smoking or drug use; and, selfishness, lying and deceit by the main bad character, stealing, and blackmail, but these things are resolved in the end.
Talk About It
Questions for the drive home, the dinner table, or the youth group.
The animals learn that differences can enrich a group. How can your family honor differences while still practicing love and friendship?
Romans 12:4–5 · 1 Corinthians 12:12–14The story highlights forgiveness after conflict. What makes forgiveness difficult, and how does Christ’s forgiveness shape the way we forgive others?
Colossians 3:13 · Ephesians 4:32The characters show self-sacrifice for the good of others. What does genuine sacrifice look like in ordinary family life?
Philippians 2:3–4 · John 15:13The movie celebrates family and marriage. What qualities help families remain loyal and loving when they face opposition?
Ephesians 5:25 · Proverbs 17:17The Final Word
This is a genuinely funny, warmhearted sequel with excellent production quality and a strong moral center. Its crude humor and light pagan elements call for discernment, especially with younger children. For middle schoolers and up, the answer is WORTH THE TRIP — MIDDLE SCHOOL AND UP.
