A Big Goodbye For "Madagascar"

Dreamworks Animation's output is steadily improving, and there's no better evidence than the third "Madagascar" installment, "Europe's Most Wanted." The "Madagascar" franchise has always been a second-stringer, heavily reliant on its celebrity voices, and always a little cheaper and more rushed-looking looking than Dreamworks' bigger titles in recent years, "Kung Fu Panda" and "How to Train Your Dragon." This time out, however, the property has been given the royal treament. The visuals have undergone a massive improvement. There are new characters who are actually exciting and fun and well-conceived. And though I still think there are some pretty glaring issues in the writing, there is no doubt that "Madagascar 3" is all-around the most thoughtful and well-executed "Madagascar" movie, and the best overall by a wide margin.

For those of you unfamiliar with the "Madagascar" series, it's about four animals from the New York Central Park Zoo, Alex the Lion (Ben Stiller), Marty the Zebra (Chris Rock), Melman the Giraffe (David Schwimmer), and Gloria the Hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith), who are mistakenly shipped to Madagascar, and have to learn to survive in the wild, endure culture shock, and find their way home. In "Madagascar 2" the intrepid group got as far as the African continent. "Madagascar 3" lands them in Europe, where they attract the unwanted attention of a proper villain, Captain Chantal DuBois (Frances McDormand) of Animal Control, prompting Alex and his friends to hide out with a traveling circus. The circus is where we're introduced to newcomers Vitaly the Tiger (Bryan Cranston), Gia the Jaguar (Jessica Chastain), and Stefano the Sea Lion (Martin Short).

The trouble with the first two "Madagascar" movies was that they never really fleshed out their characters or did anything interesting with them. Instead there were minor pratfalls, low-level gags, and an ending with a big dance number set to an old pop song. The movies weren't bad, but they were predictable and a little lazy. Alex the Lion is more or less Ben Stiller acting like he would in a typical Ben Stiller comedy, while the other three dutifully recite their pop-culture references and one-liners, and play out minor subplots that don't have much to do with the bigger story. The new installment is immediately more ambitious, creating a bigger scope, giving the story more stakes, and the plot actually has real momentum. So suddenly everything is much more exciting and meaningful. There's still too much catch-phrase based dialogue, and a few characters who feel like afterthoughts, but the circus angle gives everybody more to do, and provides a back story for the new players that is compelling and fun.

The animators were clearly glad to see the series move out of the jungle, because they do not hesitate to go utterly bonkers with the colorful circus imagery, the European settings, and the new characters. They also let the visuals get much more abstract and cartoony, creating these fantastic action and performance sequences that don't look like anything we've ever seen in a "Madagascar" movie before - or any other Dreamworks movie for that matter. This is especially apparent with the nefarious Captain DuBois, who follows in the grand tradition of single-minded Looney Toons villains so intent on catching their prey, they won't let anything get in their way. I don't think Dreamworks has had a more memorable villain in any of their animated films, and I was sad that we didn't get more of her.

It's apparent that the filmmakers put some real effort and some real heart into this movie, which was great to see after two "Madagascar" installments that were mediocre at best. I am not prepared to say that "Madagascar 3" is on par with the best Dreamworks movies because they still had to work with the same four bland central characters and there were some bits of the "Madagascar" formula that they couldn't do away with entirely. The pop songs show up right on time. However, "Madagascar 3" is not only watchable for adults, it's actually pretty entertaining, and suggests good things ahead for Dreamworks. This could have so easily been another dull, rote, uninspired sequel like the latest "Ice Age," but it wasn't. Instead, it was one of the best surprises I had this year.

Though the story is open-ended enough that could be a fourth "Madagascar" movie, everything about "Madagascar 3" suggests it was conceived as a grand finale to the series. The penguin characters will be getting their own spin-off film in 2015, but thanks to Dreamworks' crowded schedule, the earliest we'd be getting a potential "Madagascar 4" would be in 2017. So this is the last that we'll be seeing of the main characters in theaters for a long time. But if they're gone for good, I'm glad they went out on such a high note.
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