In a sentenceFrances McDormand hunts a lion across Europe on a scooter and we were on her side
Alex the lion (Ben Stiller), Marty the zebra (Chris Rock), Melman the giraffe (David Schwimmer) and Gloria the hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith) are stuck on an African reserve, waiting for the penguins to return with the plane and fly them home to New York. The penguins have gone to Monte Carlo to gamble, so the four swim to Monaco to fetch them, with Julien (Sacha Baron Cohen) in tow. A lion in a casino brings out Captain Chantel DuBois (Frances McDormand) of Monaco animal control, who wants a lion’s head for her wall. Fleeing her, the animals hide on a circus train and pass themselves off as performers, meeting Vitaly the tiger (Bryan Cranston), Gia the jaguar (Jessica Chastain) and Stefano the sea lion (Martin Short).
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The third Madagascar is the best of the three, which says less than it sounds. It is loud, fast and often properly funny, Frances McDormand’s animal-control officer runs away with it, and the four animals on the poster are passengers in their own film.
Three films in, Alex the lion and his friends are still trying to get home to New York, and this third attempt is the one that gets the series right. Eric Darnell, Tom McGrath and Conrad Vernon direct from a script by Darnell and Noah Baumbach, and they have settled on a plan a child could draw: a chase across Europe, one city per act, with a villain who never stops. It is loud and it is thin, and for 93 minutes it is more fun than it has any need to be. Children will love it. Adults get Frances McDormand.
She voices Captain Chantel DuBois of Monaco animal control, a short, square woman with a tranquilliser rifle and a nose that can pick a lion out of a full casino. The directors give her the physics of a Looney Tunes coyote: she drops to all fours and sniffs the pavement, she rides a scooter up walls, she walks away from a crash that should have killed her and straightens her hat. McDormand plays every line as a professional who resents that nobody else takes the job seriously. We laughed out loud, properly, at the sight of her rousing a ward of bandaged policemen with a rendition of “Non, je ne regrette rien”, and we were still laughing after the scene had ended, which does not happen often with cartoons made for seven-year-olds.
Kendal Cronkhite’s production design gives each city its own colours. Monte Carlo is cream stone and casino gold; Rome is sun and terracotta, with a circus pitched inside the Colosseum; London is wet grey until the finale, when the circus is relit in neon and the animals perform as bands of coloured light against black. That last sequence is the showpiece and it earns the word, a trapeze act staged as a light show with Hans Zimmer’s score climbing under it. Nick Fletcher cuts the whole picture fast, rarely holding a shot longer than a joke needs, and the pace is the film’s one firm idea: it is a chase and it behaves like one.
The penguins remain the best thing the series has produced. Skipper, voiced by McGrath himself, runs his crew like a mob boss, buys a circus with casino winnings and treats every setback as a tactical problem. Sacha Baron Cohen’s Julien falls in love with a bear who rides a tricycle, and the film follows that romance with a straight face all the way to the Vatican. Baumbach’s hand shows in the throwaway lines, which are quicker and drier than the premise would lead you to expect.
The trouble is the four animals whose names are on the poster. Ben Stiller’s Alex is given a plan and a speech about home; Chris Rock’s Marty is given a song, “Afro Circus”, which he sings until we wanted to leave the cinema; David Schwimmer’s Melman and Jada Pinkett Smith’s Gloria are given a tightrope. None of them wants anything for longer than a scene. The circus animals get the stories instead. Bryan Cranston’s Vitaly is a Russian tiger who has lost his nerve for the hoop and growls at anyone who mentions it; Martin Short’s Stefano is a sea lion so eager to please that we worried for him; Jessica Chastain’s Gia is a jaguar who wants to learn the trapeze and is nearly a character. They carry the middle of the film, and they are not the leads.
By the hour mark we had a headache. The film never lowers its voice. Every scene is a chase or a show, every line is shouted over an engine, and there is no quiet stretch in which a joke can land softly or a feeling can settle. Most critics have been kind, and so are we, but the complaint from the few who were not, that it mistakes volume for fun, is fair about a third of it.
Against the first two it is the clear winner: faster, better drawn, with a villain instead of a predicament. It is still a film in which a hippo and a giraffe walk a tightrope to a pop song, and it knows it. Take children and they will ask for it again the next day; go without them and you have McDormand, the penguins and a light show, which is more than most cartoons of this kind manage. It carries a PG and runs 93 minutes, and you will feel each of them in your ears.
Most critics enjoy it, and a fair number call it the best entry in the series. The praise gathers around the animation, with the circus sequences repeatedly picked out as the film’s high point, several reviews describing them as the most accomplished thing the franchise has done. Frances McDormand’s animal-control inspector DuBois is the other recurring pleasure, with more than one critic finding her the funniest presence on screen, and a few credit Noah Baumbach’s script with a dryness the earlier films lacked. The mobster penguins get their customary mention as scene-stealers.
The reservations are about pace and substance. Several critics find it frantic to the point of exhaustion, mistaking noise for fun, and note a thin plot and little in the way of character; comparisons with Pixar are made, and not to this film’s advantage. The spread is wide, from The Guardian’s warm admiration to The Hollywood Reporter, the one clear dissenter, which finds the shouting repetitive and most of the material unfunny. Variety also objects to broad cultural stereotyping.
Bradshaw calls it one of the week’s best releases and tremendous entertainment. He praises its colourful energy and the strong script by Eric Darnell and Noah Baumbach.
Read the full review →Hewitt finds the film a gloriously anarchic and very funny surprise, despite occasional comedy detours. He especially praises the jokes and sight gags surrounding the relentlessly inventive animal-control inspector.
Read the full review →The review finds this the best entry in the series, with its manic energy making it an enjoyable experience. It especially praises the animation, singling out the circus scenes as state of the art.
Read the full review →Chang finds the film good-humored, energetic and ambitious, though less inventive than Pixar. He praises its vivid visuals and circus-act climaxes, while noting broad cultural stereotyping and an overused pop song.
Read the full review →Christley finds the film weak on character and story but entertainingly flamboyant. He praises its spectacular, zany visuals and flights of madness.
Read the full review →The page identifies this as a review but its text is hidden behind a paywall. The critic’s verdict and any specific praise or complaint are therefore unavailable.
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MadagascarWhere the zoo animals began, and the penguins first stole a film from under them.
Fantastic Mr FoxBaumbach co-wrote this too; animals against a relentless human, with far better manners.
Paddington 2A bear, a London chase and a villain who is having more fun than anyone.
The Aristocats · not reviewed yetPampered animals cross France on foot, with a jazz band and no hurry at all.
DumboThe circus film all the others are quoting, over in an hour and still sad.
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