BEN Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer and Jada Pinkett Smith provide the voices of Alex the lion, Marty the zebra, Melman the giraffe and Gloria the hippopotamus respectively.

They are the big attractions at a New York zoo but Marty is bored and wants to break free to "the wild".

Marty escapes, his three friends follow him, get captured, boxed up and shipped off to an animal reserve along with a pack of psychotic penguins. En-route the penguins break free and take control of the ship, chartering it to the North Pole.

In doing so the four crates fall overboard and end up washed ashore on a desert island.

The film ticks along nicely with lots of tame humour not really kicking into action until we are introduced to the king of the lemurs played by the magnificent Sacha Baron Cohen featuring a wild version of "I like to move it" which will stay in your head for at least a week!

Our four heroes befriend the legion of lemurs and discover they have landed in Madagascar.

The lemurs have not seen any other animals so big and label them "The New York Giants".

Alex the lion misses the attention he gets from the zoo and wants to go back, the others chill out and enjoy their new found freedom until Alex realises he hasn't eaten any steak for three days and tries a taste of zebra rump, so a change of diet is quickly sought after.

A great film for the kids but parents should borrow the Game Boy for the first half an hour and then sit back and enjoy Ali G stealing the show.

MW