Animated spin-offs that put supporting characters who are humorous in small doses centre stage are seemingly all the rage in the animated world. Before Minions, November 2014 sees the arrival of Penguins Of Madagascar, the stand alone movie for, well the Penguins of Madagascar. Nice marketable name you focus-grouped there Dreamworks. Although it shares a name and characters with the Nickelodeon series that also spun-off from Madagascar, the film has no actual relation to the TV show, instead being a direct continuation of the movies' story. While the only people who will notice are the show's target audience who are too young to get all hung up about continuity, it does highlight how Dreamworks are caring much more about the brand than story. As with Minions, this is really an exercise to fill the box office coffers before a proper sequel arrives. Given how delightful Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted was, it's hard to be cynical about a fourth outing for those African animals, but Penguins is a different story. We never really found them funny, existing only as a plot device to get the series' main characters to the titular island, with extended periods of them feeling rather flat; the joke is really only that they're penguins. It's not a good joke.
