Movies opening this week

Madagascar (Voices of Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, Jada Pinkett Smith, dir. Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath)
My review in Las Vegas Weekly
By now, everyone's pretty much aware of the Pixar=awesome and DreamWorks=crass, empty commercialism dichotomy, so I don't think we need to go over it again. This isn't nearly as bad as Shark Tale, but it's totally forgettable. I really think a big part of the problem with these movies is the pathological need to shoehorn in big stars for all the voices without regard for whether they are right for the parts. All the main voice actors totally phone it in here. I think a throwback to the days when actors who specialized in voice work played most of the roles in animated features would breathe some life into some of these movies. As I said to someone today, where is our modern Mel Blanc? The way animated films are cast nowadays, we'll never get one. Wide release