Normally I wouldn’t bother with a movie a month old since most will have already seen it that are considering it.  But looking over the reviews for this movie, I felt I was a bit misled, so I figured it would be worth adding a review, so I could warn parents like myself that normally enjoy animated movies such as this.

Granted, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa got mixed reviews, but by and large any sequel usually gets this sort of mixed reception.  So, I took note of the number of people that said how it was actually better than the original (about the best praise you can give in my opinion) in the positive reviews and thought, OK it can’t be too terrible, since those that like it praised it far more than Ice Age: The Meltdown, which again wasn’t a real winner, but I thought was an OK sequel.

So when my daughter decided she wanted to see this, and to “save” Bolt for another week, I didn’t put up too much of a fight, and for the first 10 minutes of the movie, it seemed like it was an OK decision.  The flashback sequence, and the pseudo-recap of the first movie that gets you “up to date” was entertaining.  Unfortunately the film went downhill from there.  Like Ice Age: The Meltdown, Madagascar made use of the side characters much more in the sequel.  The penguins were again entertaining, but not enough to carry the movie, the Lemur king just became annoying and overdone, and none of this bodes well with a script that seem too much like something you have already seen before.  Part Nemo, part Lion King, part lots of other films, I kept seeeing bits from other film rather than a story that I could just immerse myself in and enjoy.

But, you will say, this is not a Pixar film and so it has less of an adult worthy script and is really geared more towards the little ones.  To those people I will tell you that about 3/4 of the way through the film, my daughter leaned over to me and asked “How much longer is this?”  And that about says it all.  There was only one other film my daughter has ever had this much disdain for, and that was Bee Movie which she begged her way into leaving half way through.  So was Madagascar better than Bee Movie, or has my daughter just matured a bit and learned a little more patience?  I’m not sure.  But, in the end it really doesn’t matter, because bad, or really awful, it is something that I wouldn’t tell anybody to waste your money on seeing in theaters.  There is nothing that will be lost in the translation to the small screen, so for those with kids that are entertained just by seeing animals run around on the screen, it might be a decent rental or purchase (if you find it on sale), but to spend the time and money (and effort to get to the theater) Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa is not worth it.  There are other films out, and others on the way, this is one that you can miss without feeling bad about it.

I’m sure that anybody reading this has already heard or read about the employee killed by a stampede at Wal-Mart on Black Friday, but I just couldn’t let it go.  It is the one time where I wish life was like CSI, and they could put somebody behind bars for this.  But this is a case where you basically have 2000 guilty parties (the estimated crowd outside the store), and no single person will be held accountable.

If anything, Wal-Mart may get sued for negligence for not having sufficient staffing and/or security, and it will most likely be settled out of court and swept under the rug.  While I do agree that Wal-Mart is guilty in not having proper staffing/security, the real culprits are the animals that were rushing into the store.  The one’s that kept streaming in and stepping over the man down, the ones that complained when the store was closed because of the death, and kept shopping because they felt they were owed it because they were dumb enough to wait on a line at some insane hour to save a few dollars.

I am certainly going to be called judgemental for this next part but, honestly right now I don’t care.  If you are the type of person that is shopping at Wal-Mart (and that includes me), you have no business in this economy buying big ticket items.  Unemployment numbers are on the rise, and at this point, basically nobody is guarateed to surive this downturn as far as jobs is concerned.  So, why exacly are you rushing out for a Flat Screen TV or a PS3 or another big ticket purchase?  I pick on these people first because, well because it is really an unecessary purchase.  If you are on line for smaller purchases at that hour, you are basically just beyond help.  Without those big ticket items, there was and is no reason to be out there at that crazy hour.  Stores have been running amazing sales already, and will by all accounts be offering the same or better as the season goes along thanks to what is expected to be a dismal holiday season for retailers, so what exactly are you rushing out for?

I saw the deals at Wal-Mart, and while some of them are certainly enticing, I didn’t see anything that was worth actually busting down the door and racing into the store in order to get.  These people were just animals, feeding on each other and built into a frenzy.  And if I had my way, each and every one of them would be held accountable.  Happy Freakin’ Holidays you nut jobs, hope you are proud of yourselves.

This is not intended to be in any way partisan or political (otherwise I would throw it over on The Daft Democrat), but since it affects our children, it is worth noting here.  The FDA has shown all to much a willingness to throw the health and safety of our food supply under the proverbial bus in efforts to protect businesses and “assure” the public there is “no risk” in places that the amount of risk is actually indeteriminable or worse.

I have covered rGBH/rBST (lots of times) as well as Food Cloning, in the past so I won’t rehash that and other stories like it.   When you consider that of the 50,845 children affected by this in China over 1000 babies are still in the hospital from melamine poisoning (and 4 have died), it was a GOOD thing that the FDA decided to start testing infant formula here.  It is not a good thing howver, that after finding melamine in at least one baby formula product, tries to sweep it under the rug as “no big deal.”   As some consumer advocates have already pointed out:

The FDA’s earlier determination that 250 ppb of melamine was a trace amount was intended for foods other than infant formula, said Sonya Lunder, a senior analyst with the Environmental Working Group.

“This is out of step with what the FDA said earlier,” she told Reuters.

 

This is because formula is the sole source of nutrition at that age, so that “trace” amount is as a percentage a much higher part of an infants intake.  Also, what seems to be missing from the story is that, melamine is often added to falsely show higher protein counts in product, so that means there is actually not as much protein as the product(s) claim.  And, as sciencebase notes:

There is no reason to imagine that those unscrupulous enough to add a toxic compound to baby formula milk would worry about contaminants, such as cyanuric acid, that might be found in the raw material. Indeed, even if melamine toxicity were not an issue and truly was an inert substance added to spike the protein readings in quality control tests, then any one of the impurities associated with rough melamine manufacture may be a major cause for concern.

I understand the FDA not wanting to start a nationwide panic, but there is nothing that is insignificant about this issue.  We don’t really need to wait until babies die here from melamine poisoning before we do something about it, do we?  The FDA needs to be on the side of the consumer, not protecting businesses.