A group of pampered star attractions from the New York Central Zoo dream of a life outside their confines in the Wild. When Marty the zebra (Chris Rock) escapes to the city streets, his friends reluctantly track him down, but are cornered at Central Station and tranqualised. Following a media campaign, they are packaged in crates aboard an ocean liner and sent away to a national park in Kenya.
  A group of penguins with secret-agent skills break out their box and take out the ship's crew, but in the fight four crates holding Alex the lion (Ben Stiller) and his friends fall overboard and wash up on a nearby island.

When Alex gets a taste for steak, he banishes himself to a distant part of the island away from his friends.
  The zebra, giraffe and hippo realise that life in the wild isn't all its cracked up to be when they see all the dangers around them, and are ecstatic to hear an ocean liner horn in the distance.
  Marty makes the brave decision to find Alex and take him with, but the lion has the taste of 'steak' in his system. Marty is surrounded by a pack of hyenas and chased through the forest, but his friends (and the penguins) show up to help him out.
  Alex enters the scene and scares away the hyenas, and then they all get on board the ocean liner which crashed earlier against the beach.
  Meanwhile the penguins are sun-bathing, and debating whether they should tell them that the liner has no more fuel!