(MOVIE REVIEW) Madagascar 3 (2012)

Madagascar 3  leaves the entire audience silent…and not in a good way

A lot of times I walk out of “kid’s movies” and realize that while I didn’t really love it the kids in the audience loved it. In that aspect, the movie did its job. It appeased its target audience and, honestly, that is all that some movies ever aspire to do/be. They aren’t looking to transcend generations and go down as the greatest movie of all time. They are only looking to be the very best at one specific thing. Movies like The Smurfs comes to mind. I didn’t exactly praise this movie when it came out, in fact I think that I beat it up pretty good, but I did give them credit for making the kids that were in the audience laugh uncontrollably. So, if I trashed it, and it actually worked for its target audience, imagine how much I hated this movie….since not even the children in the audience were laughing.

Storyline: Alex, Marty and the rest of the crew find themselves in trouble again. While continuing their quest to make it back home to the Central Park Zoo they make their way to Monte Carlo. When they make their presence known in that city an overambitious Animal Control Officer makes it her priority to hunt them down. Needing a way to stay hidden they board a traveling circus train that takes them in (provided they perform). When one of the stops on the circus route turns out to be New York City they are ecstatic. But after so many big adventures in the world, can the Central Park Zoo really compare to being in the wild?

I really hate to trash a movie that is #1 in the box office and scores a 7.0 out of 10 on imdb.com . That means that somebody out there likes it. My problem is that no one, adult or child, was laughing in this movie. I had a 13 year old and a 9 year old with me and the only things that they laughed at were the things that were in the trailers that everyone already knew the punch line to.

Worth the admission? Not in my very humble opinion. Maybe the kids that were in my screening needed a nap or were laughing on the inside but from what I could tell no one really liked it much. If your kids do end up forcing you to take them to see it drop them off at Madagascar 3 and you go watch Prometheus. That movie was GREAT!