A 3- ring, 3- D feast of surreal fun
Riotous animals wandering the world will delight the kids this summer
MADAGASCAR 3: EUROPE’S MOST WANTED Starring: The voices of Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, Jada Pinkett Smith Directed by: Eric Darnell, Tom McGrath and Conrad Vernon G Running time: 93 minutes Rating:
spiralling acts, is the ideal venue to show off this explosion of one- liners, offbeat capers and — especially when the penguins are around — inspired meshugaas.
It starts where the last film left off. The zoo animals have been stranded in Africa by the penguins, who have gone to Monte Carlo with their helpers — a gaggle of banana- mad chimpanzees — and together they have formed a walking dummy of “the King of Versailles” made up of a painted monkey face with curly- haired wig, sitting on a frame wherein the penguins use high- tech controls to win at roulette.
After a sort of Rififi breakin, the animals take off to
Vertiginous, explosive, ridiculous, frantic, Canuckaphobic: pick as many adjectives as you like, because Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted is wildly inventive enough to contain multitudes. “Frantic” is obvious from the first scenes of this over- caffeinated animated movie — the third in a series about four New York City zoo animals wandering the world, trying to get home — but “Canuckaphobic” kind of sneaks up on you.
It first surfaces in France, where our heroes — Alex the neurotic lion ( voiced by Ben the neurotic Stiller), sassy Marty ( sassy Chris Rock), fearful giraffe Marty ( the whatever- happened to David Schwimmer) and dancing hippo Gloria ( Jada Pinkett Smith, basically doing The Girl) — run into some complications.
In France, they’re told, people have to work only two weeks a year. “Somebody else has the Canadian work ethic,” says one of the madcap penguins that form a surreal chorus, sort of the Marx Brothers in evening clothes, of the orchestrated insanity.
Whatever it means, it drew quiet expressions of disappointment from a Saturday morning preview audience recently. They were much more enthused later, when the animals decide to copy a certain new- age circus put on by “French- Canadians,” an association that evokes the mention of maple syrup and cutrate pharmaceuticals.
That’s us, folks, and we’re glad to help.
Not that Madagascar needs it. This is the fastest of a fastmoving trilogy, a compendium of hilarious characters, psychedelic special effects and inyourface 3- D: when Marty’s long neck stretches into the audience, you think he’s going to eat your popcorn. The circus, with its neon lights and seek their way home, pursued by French police captain DuBois ( Frances McDormand), an indefatigable hunter of trophy heads who has her eye on Alex the lion. The monkeys can’t even stop her with their banana- guns: she dodges the ammunition in a deranged Gallic version of The Matrix. Later, when DuBois has to inspire her troops, she sings a version of Non, je ne regrette rien — Piaf being a surefire motivation for Frenchmen — that is a minimasterpiece of cultural stereotyping, or perhaps a commentary on it.
To escape, the animals join up with a failing circus by posing as acrobats and trapeze artists, and a whole new crew of creatures — most memorably an Italian sea lion named Stefano ( Martin Short) who says things like “we were a great- a circus” — is brought on board. Together they make a new kind of circus that should finally get everyone back to New York City.
Madagascar 3 shares with its predecessors a throwaway sense of the ridiculous that hides a meticulous craftsmanship. It’s evident in several high- wire chases along twisting roads or hanging from airplanes, but especially in the pyrotechnics of a multi- ring circus that hangs in the sky, a symphony of rainbow rings, explosive rocketry and bizarre animal groupings ( a hippo and a giraffe on a high- wire), while various hecklers crack wise from the wings.
All of this required three directors — Monsters vs. Aliens filmmaker Conrad Vernon joins Madagascar veterans Tom McGrath and Eric Darnell ( who co- wrote the screenplay with Noah Baumbach, whose credits also include Fantastic Mr. Fox.) Among them, they managed to make an insane film that’s the most fun at the movies so far this summer.