Stars: Ben Stiller, Jada Pinkett Smith, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer
Director: Eric Darnell, Tom McGrath, Conrad Vernon
Rated: PG
Showing: Speciality Cinema week of Friday, August 31. For more information call 292-2135.
Tickets: Buy tickets online
Runtime: 93 minutes
Animation/adventure
Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted is a riot of splashy colors, silly 3D gimmicks, big, broad kid-friendly gags - and those professionally pesky penguins.
And for adults, there's the charming spectacle of Oscar-winner Frances McDormand giving voice to her inner Edith Piaf as she belts out ‘Non, je ne Regrette Rien’ as a French-accented animal control officer.
The third film in this unlikely animated franchise takes those New York refugees from remote Africa, where they've been stranded, to Monte Carlo and other points in the Eurozone as they try to get back to the friendly and confining Central Park Zoo.
It's repetitious, as animated sequels usually are. It's running low on new ideas, though some of the conclusions these critters - lion, zebra, hippo and giraffe - reach about their fates may surprise you.
But it's also funny, a farce closer to Shrek the Third than, say, Toy Story 3.
We pick up the story of the zoo-escapees Marty the zebra (Chris Rock), Alex the lion (Ben Stiller), Gloria the hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith) and Melman the giraffe (David Schwimmer) in Africa, castaways since their fellow zoo-escapees, the enterprising penguins, have taken off in their modified chimp-powered plane and promised to send help.
The penguins are in Monte Carlo, where they've become high rollers, scamming the casinos and trashing the hotel rooms with feather-dusting pillow fights.
Alex, Marty, Gloria and Melman, King Julien (Sacha Baron Cohen) and company have to make their own way to Monte Carlo. That's where they run afoul of the legendary Capt. Chantel DuBois (McDormand), a fanatic prone to sniffing around on all fours when she's tracing her quarry. She makes a terrific villain as she chases the unruly animals all over Europe after they break the bank at the casino and make a break for it by hiding in a circus.
The relationships progress (Gloria and Melman have a thing going on) and the zoo animals, tested again and again in alien environments, keep weighing which is better: a life in captivity, where they're coddled and adored, or something more challenging.
Madagascar has always had that subtext, but it's been less about message and more about laughs. And Europe's Most Wanted, despite its shrinking ambitions and slow spots, still delivers those - usually in a South Pole tuxedo.
Next attraction: The Bourne Legacy