Penguins of Madagascar

Tom McGrath, Chris Miller, Christopher Knights, Conrad Vernon
Directed by Eric Darnell, Simon J. Smith
Rating: B

These devious penguins who are always trying to fly away from Madagascar get their own movie!

Penguins of Madagascar follows in the same vein of the Toy Story movies but switch the toys for animals. In Penguins, everyone loves these little creatures and crowd around to watch the penguin show, ignoring the once entertaining octopus. Jealous and bitter after being moved around from zoo to zoo because his popularity had died down due to a new penguin exhibit, Dr. Octavius Brine takes his revenge out on penguins world-wide.

For spin-off movies, Penguins turned out to be a fun, family movie. It begins telling the story of the four penguins, Skipper, Kowalski, Rico, and Private, and how they ended up in Madagascar. These clever penguins outwit Dr. Brine by learning along the way not to underestimate each other. Private is the newbie to the group and most often unappreciated for his ideas, but when the other penguins are in danger, he is the one to lead the way to safety.

At the heart of it, Penguins of Madagascar is about appreciating friendships. Dr. Octavius Brine might have gotten away with his evil plan if it wasn’t for one penguin and his moment of glory. There’s not many slow parts which makes Penguins a fun movie to watch and little things that make adults chuckle alongside kids.

Sinister

Ethan Hawke, Juliet Rylance
Directed by Scott Derrickson
Rating: B+

A non-fiction crime writer gets sucked into the world of the murders he’s been researching when he moves into the home of a family who were hung in their own backyard.

Ellison (Hawke) reached the peak of his writing career years ago when he pieced together an unsolved murder case. He continued to move his family around to write more books and solve crimes but was unsuccessful. The strain of moving and researching murders proved to be too much on his wife, and the latest mystery involving the disappearance of a little girl is his last chance to keep his family together.

Sinister does a great job building suspense throughout the movie. Almost every scene is tense and grotesque as Ellison watches 8mm films of families being murdered. There are five different videos so it’s not one quick scene to get over. The film of the family being hung in the house he bought is replayed multiple times, which creates an unsettling atmosphere for the main character. When he discovers a masked figure hidden in most of the videos, the black, blank eyes staring back are creepy. It didn’t help that as I watched the movie, my sister’s long, black dress was hanging on a hanger from a lintel in the corner of a dark hallway.

Despite trying to get rid of the films and accompanying projector, a box holding these items reappears in Ellison’s attic. Bumps and footsteps in the attic are what draw him into the room to find the box each time. The paranoia Ellison picks up from researching murders makes his character aware of his surroundings. What I like about his character is that when he realizes something is seriously wrong, he grabs his family and leaves instead of sticking around trying to find the source of terror in the house. With only ten minutes before the movie ends, however, the revelation was too simple for me to be satisfied with.

Sinister remains tense from start to finish but there wasn’t enough screen time of the scary bad guy. While the mystery of who is doing the murders keeps the movie in suspense, it felt too much like another boogie man story. With a sequel due to come out this August, my bet is that it will reveal a lot more about who this masked figure is.