They like to move it, move it around Africa

Even before the computer-generated animated family film “Madagascar” opened in May 2005, directors Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath began working on a sequel.

“We fell in love with the characters,” says McGrath, who does double duty as the voice of Skipper, the leader of a group of crafty penguins.

And then after the film made more than $530 million internationally, the pair had no trouble getting DreamWorks to move forward with “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa,” which opens Friday.

The whole gang -- Alex the Lion, Marty the Zebra, Melman the Giraffe, Gloria the Hippo and Julien the Lemur King (as well as the catchy tune “You’ve Got to Move It Move It”) -- is back in this installment, which finds the animals hoping to return to their home in the Central Park Zoo in an old plane that was repaired by the penguins.

Of course, they don’t quite make it to New York. Instead, the plane crash-lands in the heart of Africa, where the animals meet up with their own breeds and Alex is reunited with his parents.

To prepare, Darnell and McGrath and their crew went to Africa and visited eight animal reserves to get their own perspective on the continent.

“We had a plot point [in the early script] that centered on a watering hole,” McGrath says. “They were in the midst of a drought when we were there, so we discovered how valuable water is.”

Several new characters have been added to the mix as well. The late Bernie Mac and Sherri Shepherd are the voices of Alex’s (Ben Stiller) parents.

“The story is really centered on Alex’s family,” says McGrath, who adds that Mac gives a warm performance.

But the friends’ joy upon arriving at their homeland is short-lived. Alex finds himself in battle with a rival lion (Alec Baldwin).

And Marty (Chris Rock), says Darnell, “loses his own sense of self” among his fellow zebras. “Even his best friends can’t pick him out of the crowd. He starts to have an identity crisis.”

-- Susan King