Madagascar 3 has been receiving impressive reviews. It appears that good writing has taken prescience over the assumption that just because something is in CG3D that it will make money. Let's hope this trend continues.
The second one was pretty good, but it was missing something intangible from the first one that I still can't put my finger on. I did like the concepts of Marty losing his individuality when he finally got the family he wanted, and Alex in a weird version of The Lion King where he's a disappointment.
Though I've often said, I'm completely mystified by the Madagascar franchise. I have absolutely no idea why I like it, but I do. I found the cartoon spinoff about the Penguins insanely addictive. Somehow, I like this franchise better than Shrek. I almost thought about skipping #3 due to the circus premise and the fact they want to do four and make
that one the one that they actually get home... but the previews for the movie have been irresistible for me.
I dunno,... Maybe I like Ben Stiller and Chris Rock in a movie together?
I finally saw MIB 3 last night and it was fun. Much better than the second installment. It did have a feeling of being reshaped from the original premise. Maybe I'm projecting what we already know onto the finished piece. Definitely worth seeing. The film that was doomed to fail due to production issues will actually be a hit. There actually seemed to be a good reason for this sequel rather than the last one.
Like I said before... MIB2 tried too hard to be the last movie, somewhat like the cartoon series (the aliens races looked like they came directly out of episodes of the cartoon series, as did some of their names), and it didn't want to be its own thing. plus, there was something they did to the worms and Frank the pug that I didn't much like (again, finding the animated series versions of them superior, so I have that biased). MIB 3 learned its lesson. It didn't remake the first one with a different setting, it didn't need to copy the big reveal ending of the first movie, and all that time spent retooling the movie actually worked. That's rare.
Plus, it didn't need to work the appearances can be deceiving angle extremely hard this time. The jokes that did focus on those were actually well done. Especially the Andy Warhol reveal.