Buy it... if you're one of those little kids entranced by the movie and want to buy all the stuffed animals, fast-food restaurant toys, coloring books, and, of course, music associated with the film.

Avoid it... if you're an original score collector. Or a soundtrack collector, for that matter.

Zimmer

Madagascar: (Hans Zimmer/Various) From the writer and director of Antz and The Ren & Stimpy Show comes Madagascar, the latest production from the PDI/DreamWorks studio that has most recently brought the two extremely popular Shrek films to the big screen. The short animated film has all the glitz and visual attraction for kids, and while the film's premise is rich with promise, the execution of it seems to have gone awry in critics' views. A giraffe, lion, hippo, and zebra live the pampered life in New York City's Central Zoo, and mostly featuring mostly famous voices, their personalities carry them on a journey that involves an escape from the zoo and consequent travel back to the wild. Their transport lost at sea off the large East-African island nation of Madagascar, the animals have to cope with real life on the island. Somewhere at this point, the story loses all cohesion and this plot summary ends. As a purely slapstick style comedy, Madagascar relies heavily on its soundtrack to accentuate its sense of humor. For the most part, this would involve the incorporation of well known songs of the 60's and 70's into the picture --you've got to love the fact that studios sometimes go the less expensive route of obtaining the rights to songs that no longer demand top dollar for reuse-- and, to a lesser, extent, the original score. One of the prevailing head-scratchers involving Madagascar is composer Hans Zimmer's choice to leave the Ridley Scott mammoth Kingdom of Heaven in favor of this Dreamworks project. Former collaborator Harry Gregson-Williams, a composer coming dangerously close to surpassing Zimmer in overall quality of music recently, in turn took the leap from Madagascar to Kingdom of Heaven (with very impressive results, despite Scott's butchering of the score in the final film). Upon hearing Madagascar on album and learning of the tepid critical response, Zimmer's choice is all the more confusing.

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Perhaps there was some legal or technical reason for Zimmer to take Madagascar as a project, because you certainly can't hear the reason in musical form on the album. The same collection of songs from the film occupies over two thirds of the running time on the album. A fatal flaw is that the songs have nothing to do with one another. Placing "I Like to Move It" next to the theme from "Hawaii Five-0," "Chariots of Fire" (aren't we all still waiting for the Academy to take that Oscar away from Vangelis and give it to John Williams?) next to "Stayin' Alive," and what little frenetic score there is next to Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World," is a recipe for disaster. The songs are all overused, especially the Armstrong, and there is doubt that the collection will even suffice to drive album sales. Despite crediting Hans Zimmer first on the packaging for the soundtrack, Zimmer's contribution on album amounts to five minutes of actual original material. Of those minutes, less than two offer his own solo work. The opening song, "Best Friends," is a catchy original tune penned by Zimmer and his hoard of ghostwriters. It wouldn't be so irritating if the theme didn't sound so much like the Sesame Street song. That hoard of ghostwriters continues to contribute in the score, with Jim Dooley providing a shameless rip-off of Michael Giacchino's The Incredibles score in "Whacked Out Conspiracy." The only solo Zimmer track is a frenetic little string piece that builds up to the score's only statement of the theme from the opening song, with the lightheartedness of Nine Months throughout its length. The best cue on the album is "Born Free," which, contrary to the packaging, is not written by Zimmer. His adaptation of the famous John Barry theme accompanies a fantasy sequence in the film and to hear the slower paces of Barry's great theme in the middle of all this garbage is either a great relief or just another parody insult. Heitor Pereira's "The Foosa Attack" is a terrible drum loop nightmare for 30 seconds before the final score cue, co-written by Zimmer and James S. Levine, attempts to insert some hip 70's spirit from "Stayin' Alive" into the score. Overall, this album is a mangled mess. The film's running time indicates that there must be more Zimmer (& ghostwriter) score than just the ten minutes here. Not even the odd selection of songs can save this one. As the knights say: Run away! Run away! Run away! *

Bias Check:

For Hans Zimmer reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.98 (in 51 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.23 (in 217,689 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.