Penguins of Madagascar (2014)

  I was very skeptical of this movie.  I enjoyed the penguins as side characters in the Madagascar films but there were a lot of ways a spin-off could go horribly wrong (ahem, Minions).  Fortunately, this went Frasier and not Joey.

The penguins, Skipper (Tom McGrath), Kowalski (Chris Miller), Rico (Conrad Vernon), and Private (Christopher Knights), are a tight-knit band of operatives, but recently, Private has felt that he's not as valued as his more specialized teammates.  Things are made worse when Private, along with hundreds of zoo penguins around the world, are kidnapped by evil octopus Dave (John Malkovich).  Dave plans to mutate the penguins and turn them loose on the world in the ultimate act of character assassination.  Skipper, Kowalski, and Rico must join forces with the North Wind, another elite band of animals, to get their secretary/mascot/valued member of the team back.

I cannot stress how funny this is.  I really had low expectations but this was outstanding.  Nobody outstays their welcome, the jokes don't scrape the bottom of the barrel, and they got John Fucking Malkovich to be an evil octopus.  That's just great, man.

It's currently streaming on Netflix.