Four fabulous animal friends in the New York City Zoo seem to be living the good life. They are celebrities, the food is gourmet, and personal amenities abound, including a tanning lamp to keep that special glow. The one thing they do not have is freedom to come and go as they please.

Alex the Lion (Ben Stiller), Marty the Zebra (Chris Rock), Gloria the Hippo (Jada Pinkett-Smith) and Melman the Giraffe (David Schwimmer) are living large, and though the little penguins may not share the glamour of the fab four, they do have the smarts to want out of the zoo. They long for the wild and that’s where they think they should be rather than in a prison…uh, zoo.

Our gang of four decides to make a run for it and soon they are out of the zoo and in Grand Central Station before they are caught along with the penguins. Their sentence is an involuntary transfer to a game preserve in Africa. To get to their new home they are crated onto a cargo ship heading for Kenya. That continent is way too hot for the penguins so they take over the ship and head for Antarctica. The sharp turnaround plunges the containers with Alex, Marty, Gloria and Melman into the ocean. Once the penguins reach their glacial destination, they are less than thrilled with the gale force winds and blinding snow.

Meanwhile, Alex, Marty, Gloria and Melman are lost at sea and wash up on the lush, tropical island of Madagascar. Melman surmises they must be at the San Diego Zoo, which features wide open spaces where the animals appear to range free. They follow the music to where they expect to "check-in" to their new digs. What they find is a bunch of party animal lemurs, with their own agenda. The Lemur King Julien (Sacha Baron Cohen), sounds amazingly like Deepak Chopra, and his second banana (no pun intended), Maurice, is voiced by Cedric the Entertainer.

The lemurs are in control, except for hyena-like predators called foosas that keep them in constant fear. To a foosa the only good lemur is one being tossed in a salad for the next meal. Alex poses and roars like he does in the NYC Zoo and the foosas run for the hills. He becomes an accidental hero much like Will Smith’s character in "Shark Tale."

Back in the zoo all decisions were made for these true-blue friends, now that they are independent, they must make their own choices, some of which may be good while others might not be. The wild also brings with it risks that are not a problem in a controlled environment such as a zoo. Alex and his friends seem to be adjusting to Madagascar until Alex begins to see everyone as a porterhouse steak, just like those delivered on a silver platter everyday in NYC. This weakness and desire has him ready to eat his best friend Marty; who, after all, is a zebra and a lion’s natural prey in the wild.

These friends don’t give up on each other. As they race back to the shoreline, to hail a passing ship and sail home, they witness the sense of self-preservation needed to survive in the wild, and the pecking order (pun intended) of the food chain. There is a conflict in the sayings "There’s no place like home" and "You can’t go home again." Both may be true.

"Madagascar" sparkles early on because of the dialogue and enlightened desire for a better life. In a cute, kid oriented movie like this one you may wonder why it’s not rated G rather than PG. The racy parts are just that, they come and go so fast that you may miss them. At one point, when Gloria crashes out of her crate on-shore, she brushes off two starfish from her upper body and a large crab below the waist, all are in strategically placed locations. Rather than using a four letter word of "oh s---," the phrase "sugar, honey, ice tea" is employed. And lines from memorable old films, some hilariously edited for this PG film, are sure to please movie-loving adults.

Eric Darnell, co director, said of the production, "…characters are very stylized and not based on reality, so we could have a lot of fun with how they looked and how they moved. It gave us a lot of license because this is clearly a cartoon."

A wonderfully entertaining cartoon it is, yet the film is courageous enough to not take the easy road of a return to one’s home being clearly the better choice. Every situation has its pros and cons, and what’s right for one might be the worst thing for another.