Madagascar 3 is a mixed bag, but visuals and humor are its strong suits. The CGI is detailed; you can see each of the hairs on Vitaly, a knife throwing circus tiger. The film plays to the 3D format; there is a constant barrage of debris flying at the camera. As far as the film's humor goes, there are sight gags and slapstick comedy, as well as some clever lines here and there. But as a narrative, it's overpopulated with side characters and overstuffed with action scenes and story beats. It rushes through the story, instead of building and developing it, investing us in the characters emotionally. There is too much going on, and we don't care about any of it. Full review on my blog.… Expand

Typical Madagascar fare. Got a few chuckles out of myself and my kids. The real problem I had with it was the very strange antagonist animal catcher lady. Weird. Did not find the movie as polished or at the same pace as the first two movies. The King Julian/Bear scenes were the best in the movie. Penguins and Julian's bunch could carry a movie easily.

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I'm really surprised at all of the positive reviews on this. I don't make it to a lot of movies, but this was one of the worst movies I've seen in a while. I thought the first Madagascar was decent, but didn't see the second one. Two big issues with this version: the ridiculous plot and the message it seems to be sending.

The plot: lots of impossibilities, and they didn't seem to have any purpose rather than the animators thought these additions were amusing. The woman police officer could have been a great character, but the whole breaking through walls invincibility made her whole persona pointless and without substance. The climax of the film gave the clearest indication of this terrible plot. They basically gave up trying to show the acrobatics of Alex and Gia, instead resorting to flashes of color and flips through an endless space of black. Again, totally without substance and potentially without much effort on their part either.

The message: The film has a group of animals first wanting to leave nature for the zoo, and then deciding instead to be in the circus. Sure it's a circus that they are directing themselves, but this was only used as a motivational piece. The circus and the zoo, two places where animals have been badly mistreated, and here's a kids movie suggesting that animals love both. There was some realization about being in the zoo by Alex, and I get the references to freedom and doing things their own way, but again this still related just to the circus. A great kids movie? I almost can't believe it.

To those reviewers who say it's almost an insult to the viewer - I completely agree. We should be demanding a better movie than this. Instead it's been, 'O look, pretty colors.'… Expand

Absolutely the worst of the series. Bad jokes through out, and the animators chickened out on the best scenes for 3-d. Replacing the possibility for some cool playfulness during the circus scenes with neon rings and splashes of color in a floating no gravity environment. After suffering through the story for 2/3 of the film I was hoping for some visually stunning work. Only to be disappointed that they took the easy way out.… Expand