I guess to properly spotlight this movie I’ll have to quickly spotlight Madagascar 1 and 2. Madagascar (2005) was overall a weak entry in the Dreamworks collection. The animation, and lighting weren’t as clean as films such as Shrek and the humour overall was hit and miss. However because of the spunky attitude of the humour, and obviously the penguins the film was able to reach a competent level of entertainment in my eyes.
The sequel when I first saw it I felt was weaker then the first movie but over time I thought about it and Madagascar 2 (2008) is a far stronger movie mainly because we got off of Madagascar. Ironic isn’t it? Each of the main characters got their own story that fleshed out their characters. The penguins are still as psychotically awesome as always (but PS. I don’t think they are great main characters, only good SIDE characters). The animation is much more clean and truly seems beautiful and might I add the paper stop motion animation Dreamworks did for the ending was amazing. So, good in fact I almost didn’t realize it was paper being animated until I really looked closely at it. Also, I give the movie props for having an environmental message in it but not beating us over the head with it. This environmental message more focused on humans hurting nature so they can survive themselves, which I feel is a lot more realistic message.=
The only fumbles I noticed from the sequel would have to be one, the parallels to the Lion King but most of those are overall forgivable and two, the villain of the movie was ENTIRELY forgettable and not funny in the slightest. After the first scene with him I fast-forwarded throughout all his parts. Remember in the Nostalgia Critic’s Top 11 Disney Villains where he said Scar was a little bit of a pre-Madonna well picture this guy as a TOTAL pre-Madonna. That was just painful. But now onto Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted. Will it continue the rising quality of these movies or will it plummet into the chasm of unneeded and tacked on sequels like Open Season 2 and 3? Let’s find out.
The story centers on our heroes; Alex (Ben Stiller), Marty (Chris Rock), Melman (David Schwimmer), and Gloria (Jada Pinkett Smith), as they finish their final trek to New York. While waiting for the penguins and monkeys to return from their trip to Monte Carlo, the four decide that they are sick of waiting for them and decide to track them down Mission Impossible style. Things go as well as you expect and now the four are being chased across Europe by Animal Control officer Captain Chantel DuBois (Frances McDormand) so they hide inside a terrible circus. The animals soon learn from Stefano the Sea Lion (Martin Short) that they are performing in Rome and London, where they plan to impress a promoter to get them on their first American tour. So, now the four have to fix up a broken circus if they ever want to get back home.
Now to start off my thoughts let me say the trailer for this movie does not give itself much credit. The trailer gives the impression that this movie is along the lines of the groan worthy Open Season 3 but that truly the case.
By the end of Madagascar 2 most if not all the characters had already gotten their final character building moral lesson; Alex learned to be less self absorbed, Marty realizes that he is unique in the eyes of his friends, and Gloria and Melman confessed heir love for each other. Obviously, you can’t just tack on another moral lesson to that it would come off as being forced and would get irritating. In this movie the final dramatic building question isn’t just for one character like in most movies; including the last two movies where Alex faced his primal nature and his self-absorption. The dramatic question is for the group dynamic asking the question that’s been hanging overtop this series “Will they ever make it home to the zoo?” and honestly this movie pulls answering to a fantastic
And even while the main question is being answered we finally get a thankful decrease in subplots and the only real major one’s would be of Vitaly the Tiger (Bryan Cranston) and King Julien (Sacha Baron Cohen). Also, let me just say I’ve always found King Julien horribly annoying. Of course that’s his character, so that’s supposed to be the point but in Madagascar 3 this was the first time I really saw Julien as a character with this sub-plot, of him falling in love with a bear voiced by Frank Welker a.k.a Scooby-Doo, other than a bumbling self centered drama queen, which I greatly appreciate (there was WAY too much Julien for my tastes). All the rest of the side characters are just now side characters which helps create a more focused story.
The story holds itself up very well but it does fall into the cliché territory of writing the most blatant being close to the beginning where Alex and the other’s lie that Alex was a very famous trapeze artist who did this seemingly impossible stunt all the time. Of course this was total crap BUT like every other movie that uses this plot device the climax SOMEHOW becomes exactly like how the original lie laid it out and the liar is able to pull off the stunt. It’s not a movie breaker but it is worth to note that even this good movie has some clichéd elements to it.
From my first two paragraphs you can gather that Madagascar has had VERY weak villains over its years but now that streak is over with Captain Chantel DuBois. Picture Cruelle DeVille crossed with the Terminator and you’ll get Debois. This villain is ruthless, cunning, manipulative, strong and very threatening especially with her EVIL accent.
She’s not really one of my favourite villains due to her very oddly proportionate design but I would consider her an mention. DeBois is basically what I pictured Shaw from Open Season should be, a hunter that will get their pray by any means necessary and has the physical power to back up that claim. Shaw was nothing but a relatively weak conspiracy theorist who only at one single moment showed that he could have been a male version of DeBois. Sadly he didn’t develop Debois badassitude and now can be considered an awful, awful, AWFUL, boring villain. To close off this tangent I leave with mention of DeBois’s Big Lipped Alligator Moment. Yes there is in fact a BLA Moment in Madagascar 3, if you don’t know what it is than please see Madagascar 3 it’s almost worth the price of admission for a 2D movie ticket just for that scene.
Finally onto 3D and the animation, first off didn’t see this in 3D so all the 3D moments looked really off when watching in 2D but it wasn’t that jarring of a visual shift so at least it handles it’s 3D much more intelligently then other animated 3D movies. The animation on the other hand looks fantastic; most of the animation styling hasn’t changed since Madagascar 3 but there has been a greater amount of creative direction put into this film, especially during the film’s visuals to Katy Perry’s fireworks. The use of lighting, particle effects and the fluidity of all the visuals makes it the highlight of the movie showing the height that Madagascar 3’s visuals can go. That also leads to the film peaking too soon but the rest of the movie is good too.
In closing, I wasn’t excited for Madagascar 3 because of their crappy trailers but now that I’ve seen it it’s definitely worth a watch. I don’t think the animation is good enough for a 3D ticket purchase but I’m sure if you saw the Katy Perry Firework’s sequence I can speculate it would look amazing. Coupled with a well rounded end to the story, and a clever little nod to the original in the end and you get a perfect cap to the Madagascar series and undoubtedly we’ll never hear from any form of Madagascar 4 EVER.
Katzenberg Talks Dreamworks Sequels
Son of a bitch. Just no.
Written by Taylor ‘Whyboy’ Wyatt
Taylor Wyatt DC Blog 
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