Starring John Malkovich and Benedict Cumberbatch. Rated G.

I’ve only seen the first Madagascar movie so I didn’t know its quartet of hammy penguins already got their own short film, video game, and TV series.

Something seriously weird has evolved between that innocent tale of zoo animals escaping to the wild and the batshit insanity of Penguins of Madagascar, though. The film makes no sense. To appreciate it, you either have to be two years old—because nothing makes sense yet to a two-year-old—or on LSD.

How else to compute the sight of vaudevillian penguins battling an evil-scientist octopus with the help of a global task force led by a wolf, a polar bear, a seal, and an owl with a zillion dollars of James Bond–style planes at their disposal? Is everyone at DreamWorks on drugs and/or out of patience with telling a simple story?

That doesn’t mean Penguins of Madagascar isn’t fun at times. The highlight is not Benedict Cumberbatch voicing the wolf, Agent Classified. He’s stuck playing the straight guy, and the film doesn’t even make sport of female animals being attracted to him. No, the delight here is John Malkovich as Dave, a snaggle-toothed octopus who once entertained kids at marine parks until penguins stole his limelight. Somehow Dave became Dr. Octavius Brine, who invented a ray beam that turns cute things ugly. He plans to kidnap every penguin and make them into hideous monsters. The film’s message is that it’s what’s inside that counts, but then (spoiler alert) all the penguins get turned back into cutie-pies. Because cuteness.

Dave commands his minions with celebrity puns like “Nicolas, cage them!” So that’s fun for adults. Kids will like the penguins’ pratfalls, but to me they seemed gruff and insipid. Cage them and let Dave loose next time.