FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Forumrxes Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Gordon-11 This animated film tells the story of several zoo animals who are lost in Africa, and they have to pretend to be circus animals in order to go back to their zoo in New York.I am glad to say that this instalment is fun, warm and not annoying at all. I like the bright and vibrant colour scheme, and I like the numerous jokes as well. There are subplots for adults to feel and reflect upon as well. It is an enjoyable film for all ages. I liked it.

Wei Jay Tan Original Score:2.5/4Following up the story of the New York Zoo animals that have escaped from New York Zoo and was supposed to be sent back to the wildlife preserve of Africa, and accidentally ends up at the island of Madagascar. Where they reside and make friends with the residents of the island, the lemurs with their King Julien. From the ending of the first film, we know that the boat is out of gas. From the ending of the second film, we know that they live happily in Africa awaiting the return of the penguins who will take them back to New York after their trip.Opening in African Savannah where the second part of the story left off, we see The New York Giants(which is how the Lemurs addressed the Zoo animals from New York) overlooking a model of the city of New York. Including the New York Zoo where they call home. Alex and the other animals decides to swim for Monte Carlo in search of the penguins Skipper, Private, Rico and Kowalski who can take them back home. In addition, when they did, an animal control member named Dubois chases them across Monte Carlo (and later all over Europe). Was this the suggestion of the film's plot by the film's title? Absolutely. Some of the sequences are absolutely a visual delight for the audiences. I really did like the circus show that they did, which really did impress the American promoter. And also the finale where they did Trapeze Americando which delighted both the audiences in the show and the audiences who were watching the show. Do not exclude me because I am among the theater audiences as well. Still, I like the ways that Alex talked about following good passions, and how they inspired the Circuis Zargoza's animals to train hard and create a show that literally blew the American promoter away. However, that is pretty much one of the few things I like about the show. Other moments, not by a long shot due to the galling content. Unlike it's predecessors, Madagascar 3 has improved significantly compared to the first or second entry in the Madagascar film series. The characters of the third film have their own respective personalities, and I mean the characterizations are somehow there for the circus animals. But other characters, not so much. The plot, on the other hand, has tuned down it's humor's level of explicit content, but it is still on a level that offers kids and adults some enjoyment and entertainment without too much irrelevance, but note that irrelevant content is still present in the film. Which is what I did not like about it.Here is an example (along with the predecessors of this film) that you should not add any of that unnecessary stuff in the film, including rude humor, offensive dialogue, disturbing scenes and stuff like that. So, here's to hope that the fourth entry in the series would not be like it's predecessors, which contains a lot of unnecessary stuff.Overall, kids will enjoy the third entry in the Madagascar film series with the appealing circus performances, vocal performances and characters that they will like. But I didn't exactly like the whole thing, here I hope that the fourth entry in the franchise would tune down upon it's rude humor and focus more upon it's story, creating a film that would be as appealing as How to Train Your Dragon, which is perhaps Dreamworks's best and most relevant franchise to date.

Stompgal_87 I rented this DVD to see what it was like compared to the first two I had seen at the cinema and it is just as good. The first fifteen minutes were filled with laugh-out loud moments such as Alex imagining himself and the other three main animals as elderly animals, the lemurs jumping out of Alex's birthday cake that had a sense of scatological humour (Mort vomiting pink icing) and the antics in the casino and the possible parody of 'The Matrix' involving the monkeys shooting from 'banana guns,' thus making these the funniest first fifteen minutes in the entire 'Madagascar' franchise. As for the soundtrack, this has the best of all three 'Madagascar' films. Its highlights were the opening African-inspired music; the spy-movie-type music playing as the four main animals swim towards the hotel in Monte Carlo; sing-songs of 'Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now),' 'Wannabe,' 'What's New Pussycat?,' 'New York, New York' from the 1949 film 'On The Town' and 'Hot In Herre (in which King Julien replaces, "so take off all your clothes" with "so take off all your fur"); the piece of classical music played over the shot of the Colliseum; Chantal's rendition of Edith Piaf's 'Je Ne Regrette Rien;' the brief Psycho-sounding music playing before the lemurs encounter the bear on the train; Yolanda Be Cool's 'We No Speak Americano;' Katy Perry's 'Firework;' and last but not least, 'I Like To Move It (probably the signature song of the 'Madagascar' franchise)' mixed with typical circus music. The character animation is on par with that in the first two and while the film includes my favourite characters of the main four, the penguins, the monkeys and the lemurs, I also liked the side characters consisting of circus animals (especially Gia and Stefano) and dogs. Chantal was a menacing villain and while I was initially worried when she rolled on the train track in case she got electrocuted or run over by a train she was okay, although her most amusing moments involved shooting various Italian police officers with tranquillisers, getting shot in the bottom with one herself towards the end and being shipped towards Madagascar in crates along with other human characters in a similar manner to the main animals in the original. I must admit I do miss the presence of the elderly woman who called Alex a "bad Kitty" in the first two films because she was comical. There is a wide variety of backgrounds such as the picturesque surroundings of Monte Carlo and the mountains as well as a lovely flythrough of London at night with Big Ben and the London Eye being beautifully illuminated. The interior circus scenes in the latter half use beautiful fluorescent lighting too.Moving onto the dialogue, it is as smart and witty as that in the first two films, especially Stefano's line "My tears are real, you're not!" when the four main animals reveal they are zoo animals rather than circus animals, which makes this a typical use of the 'liar revealed' trope. The script also mentions clichés such as Chantal labelling the idea of running away from the circus as one. I also liked Alex mentioning his ancestors (I.e. other lions) used to perform at the Colliseum and one of the circus animals saying, "That's Bolshevik!" as a play on a profanity. As usual, the voice acting from Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, Jada Pinkett-Smith, David Schwimmer and Sacha Baron Cohen was superb as was Frances McDormand voicing Chantal with a convincing French accent. I also liked Stefano and Gia's Italian accents.Overall this is an amusing third instalment of the franchise with the creme de la creme consisting of the witty dialogue, the character animation and the soundtrack. 8/10.

weezeralfalfa Superb for those who crave a variety of charismatic humanoid mammalian animations, and long stretches of virtually non-stop supersonic action or slapstick, punctuated by heart to heart dialog. For me as an adult, it gets pretty exhausting and mind-numbingly irrelevant to reality at times. As with most cartoons and animations, it promotes the fantasy that humans and animals can routinely defy the laws of physics and have an infinite number of reincarnations after having been subjected to numerous normally fatal or near fatal bodily insults. Obviously, these are very attractive fantasies for humans, especially children.As in the case of the recent animation "The Pirates: Band of Misfits", not to mention some classic fairy tales, this film risks being perceived as misogynic, as the constant prime villain is characterized as a woman in authority(In this case, a fanatical, virtually indestructible, French animal control police woman, who shoots anesthetizing darts at them, hoping to add a mounted lion head to her extensive wall collection of animal heads, along with returning the others to their home zoo). Perhaps the idea is that the direct authority figures for most children(mothers, step-mothers, teachers) are primarily women. Hence, the children are identifying with the pirates, scientists, animals or damsel whom the authority figure wants to control or harm. The persecuted humans or animals thus become the heroes in rebelling against the traditional or abusing authority, just as children often wish they could invent their own individual or group activities rather than being directed by robotic authority figures. In this film, the animals eventually are able to own and control their own circus, thus can devise their own amusements for others, as children(and adults) often wish.The other significant intellectual issue is the attitude toward whether it's better for non-domesticated animals to be in their native habitat or confined to a zoo, circus, home or other human-devised enclosure. 'Born-free' fanatics abhor any kind of human-devised confinement and, often, any killing of non-domesticated animals. They forget that nature also is often cruel: that unprotected animals often die of starvation, thirst, poaching, predation or health risks. This point is dramatized to some extent in Madagascar I & II.The ending of the recent animation film "Rio", with an exhilarating escape of the last two known members of a macaw species into the native jungle, plays on the human emotional bias of wanting to escape physical confinement and the behavioral limits enforced or encouraged by authority figures or, in the case of Blu, by one's own timidness. In reality, assuming that humans had worked out how to promote good reproduction and survival under confined conditions, you wouldn't want to release the last few individuals of a species into the wild, where they and their offspring face many more potential life-threatening challenges, with the possible exception of communicable diseases and parasites. The wise Tulio knows this. But, Jewel, having tasted the freedom of her(much reduced) native forest, and unaware of her own extreme rarity, refuses to accept continued life in confinement, however safe, and has convinced lifelong pet Blu to try to overcome his fears of dealing with the unknown of an unprotected habitat: a good message for children. In the present film, the animals are not characterized as being among the last few of their species. Initially, they decide to try to return to their 'home' in the barred NYC Central Park Zoo, having discovered the downsides to living in their native African habitat. To get there, they jump on a European circus train to escape capture, learn about the circus as a potential fun lifestyle and buy it. They now can have the best of both worlds. As long as they please the customers with their antics(which they initially fail to do), they can have fun, choosing their antics, and not worry about starving or being eaten by predators, nor about being mistreated by human owners. However, first, they have to eliminate than mad French animal control woman, who has followed them to NYC to accomplish her goals. Finally, they subdue her, and she is last seen in a crate bound for Madagascar(which once was a French colony.) Of course, real animals can't own and manage their own circus or zoo. However, as of recent times, they may be lucky enough to escape both the dangers of wild habitats and the boredom and possible mistreatment of confinement in cages, by a more practical alternative: the trend toward open habitat zoos and large aviaries, so that humans can observe them in somewhat natural conditions. That would have been a fitting finale message.Didn't miss that crack about the French and Canadians being ultralazy!