Those escapees from the Central Park Zoo are on the move again and we caught ‘um!
By: Lynn Barker
Abandoned by the penguins who have left Africa to make their fortune at the casinos in Monaco, Alex, Marty, Melman, Gloria and King Julien track them down only to be chased through Europe by the evil Captain Dubois of Animal Control. What to do when the “cops” are after you? Join the circus!
The animals arrive in Monaco waters
Story Goes:
Still wanting to return to their homes at NYC’s Central Park Zoo, our heroes need the help of the penguins and their monkey “builders” to fly home. After following them to Monaco, the “herd” draws the attention of mean Animal Control officer Captain Dubois who wants to add a lion head to her collection of critters on the wall!
Cornered and almost captured, the gang finds a train full of down-on-their-luck circus animals headed for Rome. They lie, saying they are American circus performers and join the circus. Alex falls for pretty kitty jaguar Gia and the gang learns that since hot act Vitaly, the Siberian tiger, lost his nerve to jump through tiny hoops, the whole gang has no desire to perform. The Rome performance is a disaster.
With the help of Alex and his crew, each animal creates a new, spectacular act (including Marty with his “Afro Circus” idea), a promoter is impressed and finally, after a last ditch effort by evil Dubois, the gang is home and needs to decide if the Zoo is still where they want to be.
Marty does his Circus/Afro song
Special Features:
Under “High Flying Fun” we get the Blu-ray Exclusives which are:
- “Get Them on the Train” – a cute game matching the animal to its train boxcar and then launching them on. Several “levels”. Fun.
- “The Animators’ Corner” – The three directors and various animators comment in a small box over the movie, about various scenes with storyboards, animators acting out the scenes and in other visuals. Cool inside info like they had to re-do some backgrounds for this film because they were accidentally erased in computer on the last movie! Watch this after seeing the movie through first.
- “Trivia Track”- You get interesting facts that appear in boxes as the movie plays.
- Under “Special Features” – on Blu-ray and DVD, we have:
- “Big Top Cast” – We see the various voice actors recording and talking about their roles. Really fun and you see that they are a family now after doing 3 films as their characters.
Vitaly with Alex
- “Deleted Scenes” – Three of them in various phases of completion. Interesting but you can see why they weren’t really needed.
- “Mad Music Mash-Up” – very short but you can briefly dance and sing to Marty’s silly “Circus/Afro” song mixed with “Move It”.
- “Ringmasters” – This is one day in the lives of the filmmakers at the DreamWorks’ Glendale “campus” where they have meetings, pitch new scenes and go about making the film. You do learn a lot about how these movies are made. The special effects guys even shoot a banana out of canon to see how it will look in the movie.
- “Madagascar 3 Roundtable” is the four lead actors talking about their experiences making the movies. Nice but way too short!
- “Filmmakers’ Commentary” – This is the usual commentary over the entire movie. You get some fun facts but a lot of the stuff is covered in other features.
The gang at the circus
Wrapping Up:
This 3rd film in the Madagascar series is more colorful and action-packed than the others and it has a lot of heart as well. The fave penguins are at it again and adding the new circus characters and Captain Dubois to the mix is great especially since they are voiced by really good actors like Martin Short, Bryan Cranston, Jessica Chastain and Frances McDormand.
This is a full-circle journey, bringing the gang back home finally but with some surprising results. Chris Rock’s hilarious “Circus/Afro” song alone makes it well worth adding this one to your collection and hey, with the Blu-ray/DVD/Digital Copy pack, you also get your own cute “Marty Rainbow Wig” so you too can dress up for Halloween and do the “Circus/Afro” dance.
The evil Captain Dubois
Extras on this set are both fun and educational with a nice balance of features including actors/filmmakers/games etc. Almost everyone is a fan of this animated series and it is very nicely wrapped up here for home entertainment so we’ll go all 5 stars.
Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted Blu-ray:
Cover Art for Madagascar 3
