Saturday, June 23, 2012

Madagascar 3 - 3 smiles


“Madagascar 3,” the on-going adventures of Alex the lion (voiced by Ben Stiller), Marty the zebra (Chris Rock), Melman the giraffe (David Schwimmer) and Gloria the hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith), is full of wonderful lunacy and better than the first two. And creative, too. At one point, a talking penguin orders a chimpanzee to ‘deploy the banana gun.’ This order is intended to stop a Monte Carlo animal control officer, Captain Chantal Dubois (voiced by Frances McDormand doing a wonderfully silly French accent). And as the banana bullets come at her, she engages in a series of slo-mo ‘Matrix’-style bullet dodging that’s inspired. Pretty funny stuff.

As our heroes try to evade the tenacious Dubois, who wants Alex’s head for her trophy wall, they are forced to, literally, join the circus. The antics Vitaly (Bryan Cranston), a tiger who can jump through a tiny hoop, Gia (Jessica Chastain), a jaguar who longs to fly on the trapeze and Stefano (Martin Short), a the sea lion who wants to be a cannonball contribute to the visuals of the circus with some eye-popping neon sequences. But you know that Dubois is going to be lurking in the background just waiting to pounce. And, surprisingly, there’s an emotional core to the story with Vitaly, who has lost his confidence and King Julien’s (Sacha Baron Cohen) romance with the tricycle-riding bear named Sonya. And, of course, you have the loyalty and friendship of Alex, Marty, Melman and Gloria. Kids will love “Madagascar 3” and parents will, too. 6/15/12

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