Since moving to New York City, I started noticing (and am amazed at) just how New York-centric so many movies tend to be. A huge number are set in and constantly reference aspects of life unique to NYC. And characters in some movies even live in apartments at 5th Avenue & 12th Street, directly across 12th street from Cardozo.

Madagascar, however, takes this NYC-centrism — and specifically Manhattan-centrism — to new heights. As Christine Hurt at Conglomerate noted:

Unless your five-year-old lives in the five boroughs and reads the NYT Book Review, this movie may miss its mark.

When I went (10:45 p.m. last night), there were, understandably, no five-year-olds. But there were a number of adults. And lots of laughter. I'm pretty sure kids wouldn't have understood very much of the dialogue, though. And the animals-eating-other-animals scenes would likely be more than a little disturbing to some children.

The best line was very early, when Marty the Zebra (Chris Rock) was deciding what do with the rest of his life, after realizing it was half-way over. Among the options: go to law school.