Running Time: 1 hour, 25 minutes
Rating: PG
Directors: Eric Darnell, Conrad Vernon, Tom McGrath
Quick Impressions:
The Madagascar movies keep improving exponentially. I’ve never been a huge fan of the original, but I thought Madagascar 2 was pretty decent, and 3 (particularly in comparison to the other two) was amazing. It’s consistently engaging and surprisingly funny (even for grown-ups). The story is kind of bizarre, but that’s funny, too. What would be a plot hole in a serious film becomes a joke in Madagascar 3. Stuff like, they need the plane to get from Africa to New York, so they go to Monte Carlo to get the plane, but how do they get from Africa to Monte Carlo? Things like this keep happening, and the movie either never addresses them or self-consciously jokes about them. That’s for the best as far as I’m concerned because 1) the absurdity of it eventually becomes kind of hilarious, and 2) it allows the movie to build momentum very quickly. And this momentum never dies.
You may be disenchanted by this movie, and you could easily be overstimulated, but I think you would have to try pretty hard to be bored. (In general, though, I think that the viewer who makes a great, disdainful fuss about the banality of Madagascar 3 should not have bought a ticket. There have been two other Madagascars, and both of them are worse than this. Surely you’re not going in expecting a film that was the toast of Cannes!)
This movie never slows down. It’s all action and mostly comedy (with a few touching moments that don’t last long enough for kids to get bored). I went with a group of people aged sixty to three, and all of us enjoyed the whole thing. That’s even more impressive considering that not one of us (four adults) actually expected to.
Another plus is that the preview does not spoil the movie (a stroke of good luck that happens all too seldom these days). Almost everything in the preview (except for the few seconds of circus stuff) happens in the first half hour of the film.
The Good:
In all the Madagascar movies, the supporting characters always provide more overall entertainment (and certainly more laughs) than the core group. The best parts of the original movie were the lemurs, the chimps, and the penguins (which explains why they’re the ones who ended up with a spin-off cartoon on Nickelodeon). Madagascar 3 is so funny because they added more supporting characters who are even more amusing.
Voiced by Frances McDormand doing a very hammy French accent, Capitaine DuBois is consistently hilarious. She just gets funnier and funnier. Most of the humor is very silly, and some is slapstick, but other jokes are more cerebral. (One moment seems to be a wink and a nod to Inception, but even if you don’t pick up on that, the moment is so committed to its zaniness that it’s funny, anyway.)
McDormand is absolutely amazing in the part, and the animators are certainly doing a great job, too. Wisely, the movie makes the choice of not making DuBois a realistic animal control officer who plays by the rules. She is, in fact, a complete maniac, a loose cannon and possible sociopath who has her own agenda and apparently no moral code at all. That’s really the only antagonist that would work in a movie like this, a movie that doesn’t even try to make sense. The protagonists make decisions that are crazy! And the person chasing them is even crazier! (It’s why I love Bugs Bunny best when he’s battling Yosemite Sam. Why irritate a dull straight man when you can infuriate a vindictive lunatic? The latter is so much more fun to watch!) DuBois may be the best part about the movie, but she’s not the only good thing.
The circus animals also make great additions. Since I’m of the school of thought that most situations could be improved by joining the circus, I was easily captivated by a movie that seems to share that life philosophy.
Jessica Chastain makes the Gia the leopard very appealing, Bryan Cranston plays Vitaly the Tiger with the perfect combination of grandeur and pathos, and Martin Short adds something, too, as Stefano, the Seal with just about average intelligence. Sonya the hulking bear (non-verbally voiced by animation staple Frank Welker, whose work I first appreciated on Muppet Babies) provides laughs when she upgrades her trike, some gross moments as she devours seemingly raw fish, a minor scare for toddlers when she first appears with her glowing red eyes , and—surprise!—one of the two new romances in the film.
The new characters are engaging and the scenes of the revamped circus are pure eye-candy set to the highly appropriate ear-candy of Katy Perry’s Firework. (Now that I think about it, ear candy sounds pretty gross. I’m not actually trying to slam Katy Perry’s song. In fact, its inclusion helped me expand my earlier answer to the question my mom asked when watched the preview for Katy Perry: Part of Me before the feature—“Is Katy Perry real?”) The revamped circus truly does look spectacular. I’m sure it’s awesome in 3D (but my daughter won’t wear the glasses). It’s fun to look at. And it’s very rewarding that the script—pretty frenetic and scattershot throughout—actually rewards us with a fitting finale performance of “trapeze americano.”
Funniest Scene:
My favorite part of the entire movie was probably the moment during the first chase scene with Captain DuBois when she did not let walls stand in the way of her prey. My husband, stepson, and I all cracked up watching that. But the best part came moments later when King Julien commented on her actions and settled on an almost cruelly unfair solution. Even my mom laughed out loud at that point. It nearly killed me. (My daughter, meanwhile, had her blanket over her head because DuBois scared her, but I think she was the only one who felt that way.)
I have to say, though, I was also pretty impressed with Vitaly’s rescue of Marty.
This movie is really funny, consistently funny. At the beginning, it seems to be trying too hard and the jokes seem a little flat, but as it picks up steam, it keeps getting funnier and funnier and funnier and just never relents. There’s tons of slapstick but also some really great, genuinely amusing lines that come and go so quickly that afterwards it’s hard to remember them all.
Basically, the movie’s goal is to be funny, and it achieves that, even if it’s sometimes at the expense of reality.
The romantic day King Julien and his new love share in Rome may actually offend some people at the beginning. At the very least, it doesn’t get the laughs it’s looking for right away. The audience in our theater was conspicuously silent during the papal audience. But the final moment of this interlude is screamingly funny. Plus the whole romance is so terrifically absurd that it’s hard to reflect back on this portion of the movie without a smile.
Best Scene Visually:
I didn’t see the movie in 3D because my daughter won’t wear the glasses, but even in 2D, the first performance of the revamped circus in London looks amazing. It’s really beautiful to watch.
Best Action Sequence:
The “trapeze americano” ending is hard to beat, but the initial chase with DuBois is also great.
Best Scene:
I’ve already singled out so many great moments in this movie. I think the movie really comes together during the training sequence just before the London performance when Alex convinces the circus to revamp its acts.
Another very strong moment comes when Stefano narrates the story of Vitaly.
The Negatives:
I never like anything that Sacha Baron Cohen writes, but in other people’s movies, he can be a very good actor, and I’ve always loved his King Julien, loyally accompanied by Cedric the Entertainer’s Maurice and Andy Richter’s Mort. Cohen’s King Julien and Tom McGrath’s Skipper, the lead penguin, are pretty much my favorite characters in the franchise.
I’m saying that under “negatives” because the great downfall of the Madagascar series is that the four core characters are always the least interesting part of every movie. What makes Alex, the self-focused lion and his three boring friends good protagonists? Usually Alex gets the most development, and that’s true here, too. Ben Stiller’s Alex is pretty good in this movie. His love story with Gia is compelling and sweet. But Chris Rock has almost nothing to do as Marty. It seems weird to me that when Rock is a standup comedian, he gets so little opportunity to deliver jokes. Sometimes, you also wonder, too, if Chris Rock may not actually be laughing at the audience. And as Melman and Gloria (now finally together), David Schwimmer and Jada Pinkett Smith have almost nothing at all to do this time around. (Maybe that’s a good thing. Admittedly David Schwimmer is usually at his best when he’s bafflingly not in a relationship with the person who is clearly his love interest.) I do like the moment the four share during their final reflection on the zoo, but it still seems odd to me that the four “stars” play the least charismatic characters in the movie.
Overall:
We had to go to two theaters to see Madagascar 3 because our showing of choice had sold out. This movie seems to be playing for packed houses, and the audience we saw it with responded well. It’s not deep. It’s not profound. But it is funny. We all laughed many times and left the theater in a great mood. It’s the best mainstream popcorn flick I’ve seen since The Avengers. (In other words, I enjoyed it more than Snow White and the Hunstman and Battleship. Actually, make that much more than Battleship.) Europe’s Most Wanted exceeded my expectations and was a great time at the movies!