Review: Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted

by



Cast: Ben Stiller, Jada Pinkett Smith, Chris Rock
Director: Eric Darnell | Tom McGrath | Conrad Vernon
Country: USA
Genre: Animation | Adventure | Family | Comedy
Official Trailer: Here


Editor’s Notes: Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted opens for wide release on 6/8/2012.

I have no idea why it was deemed necessary to make a third film in the Madagascar franchise, but here it is, Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted, which exists on that thin line between inspired zaniness and abject horror. One is accustomed to suspending disbelief for an animated film – after all, one of the great joys of animation is that it frees itself from the constraints of the real world. Madagascar 3, however, doesn’t merely strain the limits of credulity; it bursts through them with gusto, multiple times over, as loudly and boisterously as it possibly can. Its audacity is admirable – in a head-tilted-sideways kind of way – but its purposeful, relentless obnoxiousness is tough to swallow.

Madagascar 3, however, doesn’t merely strain the limits of credulity; it bursts through them with gusto, multiple times over, as loudly and boisterously as it possibly can.

The film continues the globe-hopping travails of insecure lion Alex (Ben Stiller), rowdy zebra Marty (Chris Rock), and timid giraffe Melman (David Schwimmer), inhabitants of New York’s Central Park Zoo who were once upon a time shipped to Madagascar and have spent the better part of the movies struggling to get back to their cages. Our wildlife heroes have a knack for running into continual scenarios that ultimately jettison them to far off countries that ultimately lead to fits of existential turmoil. That unmistakable New York angst is the product of the screenplay, co-written by none other than Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale, Margot at the Wedding), whose work is generally made up of equal parts self-loathing and world-loathing. In this film, we have Marty fretting over returning to his safe Central Park enclosure, a desire that is interrupted amid a raucous, globetrotting adventure that leads to our heroes claiming ownership of a ramshackle circus (don’t ask). The circus performers, from a hoop-jumping Russian tiger (Bryan Cranston) to a slap-happy sea lion (Martin Short), are experiencing existential crises of their own, having long ago lost their glory – and their audience. Jessica Chastain even shows up as a sleek and sensuous tiger who serves as a love interest for Alex.

Our wildlife heroes have a knack for running into continual scenarios that ultimately jettison them to far off countries that ultimately lead to fits of existential turmoil.

The notion that these urban, whiny animals yearn for one form of wildlife slavery and then get distracted by another is a disturbing irony that isn’t really addressed for the majority of the film, though it carries this idiocy off with such bright whimsy that it’s hard to stay offended. There is, eventually, a message about emancipating animals from cages and trainers, though it might get lost in the bombast of sound and light populates most of the third act.

And what bombast it is, made up of bright colors, elaborate chases, zany antics on top of zany antics, broad calamities, and LOUD voices. Such are the elements of a “successful” Madagascar movie, all in play here. The animation is a mixed bag, offering truly stunning rendering of landscapes and everyday objects but character work that is mediocre at best. The film’s directors, Eric Darnell, Tom McGrath, and Conrad Vernon, know how to orchestrate animated mayhem, mounting a first-act chase sequence through the streets of Monaco that is very nearly brilliant with its building tension and rising stakes and absolute refusal to even remotely adhere to reality, even in an animated context. That is the strength of Madagascar 3 – it is proudly incomprehensible, boldly energetic, and broadly, unapologetically surrealistic. That kind of go-for-broke insanity results in a handful of inspired sequences…and a bunch of others, which grate our nerves to a dangerous level.

47/100 ~ BAD. Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted is an unapologetically ridiculous animated adventure that toes the line between inspired surrealism and outright catastrophe.

Jason McKiernan


Awards Pundit & Senior Film Critic. I married into the cult of cinema at a very young age - I wasn't of legal marriage age, but I didn't care. It has taken advantage of me and abused me many times. Yet I stay in this marriage because I'm obsessed and consumed. Don't try to save me -- I'm too far gone.