Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted: Critic Reviews

The story in Madagascar 3 is functional, but the antically civilized spirit is infectious.

Kids will be stimulated. And, parents, you'll enjoy the sights.

Here is a family movie from which absolutely nothing is expected, and yet it's one of the week's best releases: a muscular, potent and very funny film.

Set at a frenzied pace meant to connote fun, it mostly feels like a frenetic spectacle.

[It] may be the best of the bunch, simply because it busts the leash that tethers it to anything resembling reality.

Cascading, colorful 3-D performance sequences are sufficiently dazzling that you'll forgive the bajillionth soundtrack sampling of "Firework."

Like a big-screen Big Gulp, this third installment of the billion-dollar animated franchise contains as much cinematic confection as an 85-minute movie can bear.

Despite a script co-written by Noah Baumbach, "Madagascar 3" can't upgrade its own shtick, becoming a craven example of a fast-buck, no-fun family film.

"Madagascar 3" is all about exuberant motion, cute characters and gorgeous colors. It aims for the eyes, not the heart.

A riot of splashy colors, silly 3-D gimmicks, big, broad kid-friendly gags - and those professionally pesky penguins.

From time to time the improbable occurs: A sequel outdoes its original.

...off-kilter wit and smarts to an animated bestiary that keeps you laughing while eloquently re-defining where home is.

Your brain goes breathless and giddy struggling to keep up.

It's silly, and it's lazy. And yet, again, it's pretty funny.

This is the rare animated property that has consistently improved on its ho-hum origins.

What might be barely tolerable in a seven-minute short gave me the biggest headache since "Transformers: Dark of the Moon.''

The movie zooms along at a clip so quick, it sometimes overwhelms.

The clever lines and themes of friendship and finding home are almost completely overwhelmed here by the breathless pace and sensory overload...

It has value only as a way to engage a very young viewer until his or her attention span expires.

Yes, it's a cartoon, but it's conspicuously unmodulated, with the volume set on high and the pacing all but pushed to fast-forward.

The animation is grand, and the lovely images may be enough to send really young kids away happy. Their parents might leave feeling they've been taken in by some carny sleight-of-hand, though.

I have to give props to a movie that ascends from eccentricity to insanity without losing its footing.

A neon-saturated, high-flying trapeze act with enough frenetic funny business that it's a wonder the folks behind this zillion-dollar franchise about zoo critters on the lam didn't send the animals to the circus sooner.

Fans of the original and its familial sequel will love this colorful, vibrant excursion through Europe.