On par with the first two but is probably the funniest with the best soundtrack since the second

Rating: 8/10 (5 January 2014)

I rented this DVD to see what it was like compared to the first two I had seen at the cinema and it is just as good.
The first fifteen minutes were filled with laugh-out loud moments such as Alex imagining himself and the other three main animals as elderly animals, the lemurs jumping out of Alex's birthday cake that had a sense of scatological humour (Mort vomiting pink icing) and the antics in the casino and the possible parody of 'The Matrix' involving the monkeys shooting from 'banana guns,' thus making these the funniest first fifteen minutes in the entire 'Madagascar' franchise.
As for the soundtrack, this has the best of all three 'Madagascar' films. Its highlights were the opening African-inspired music; the spy-movie-type music playing as the four main animals swim towards the hotel in Monte Carlo; sing-songs of 'Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now),' 'Wannabe,' 'What's New Pussycat?,' 'New York, New York' from the 1949 film 'On The Town' and 'Hot In Herre (in which King Julien replaces, "so take off all your clothes" with "so take off all your fur"); the piece of classical music played over the shot of the Colliseum; Chantal's rendition of Edith Piaf's 'Je Ne Regrette Rien;' the brief Psycho-sounding music playing before the lemurs encounter the bear on the train; Yolanda Be Cool's 'We No Speak Americano;' Katy Perry's 'Firework;' and last but not least, 'I Like To Move It (probably the signature song of the 'Madagascar' franchise)' mixed with typical circus music.
The character animation is on par with that in the first two and while the film includes my favourite characters of the main four, the penguins, the monkeys and the lemurs, I also liked the side characters consisting of circus animals (especially Gia and Stefano) and dogs. Chantal was a menacing villain and while I was initially worried when she rolled on the train track in case she got electrocuted or run over by a train she was okay, although her most amusing moments involved shooting various Italian police officers with tranquillisers, getting shot in the bottom with one herself towards the end and being shipped towards Madagascar in crates along with other human characters in a similar manner to the main animals in the original. I must admit I do miss the presence of the elderly woman who called Alex a "bad Kitty" in the first two films because she was comical. There is a wide variety of backgrounds such as the picturesque surroundings of Monte Carlo and the mountains as well as a lovely flythrough of London at night with Big Ben and the London Eye being beautifully illuminated. The interior circus scenes in the latter half use beautiful fluorescent lighting too.
Moving onto the dialogue, it is as smart and witty as that in the first two films, especially Stefano's line "My tears are real, you're not!" when the four main animals reveal they are zoo animals rather than circus animals, which makes this a typical use of the 'liar revealed' trope. The script also mentions clichés such as Chantal labelling the idea of running away from the circus as one. I also liked Alex mentioning his ancestors (I.e. other lions) used to perform at the Colliseum and one of the circus animals saying, "That's Bolshevik!" as a play on a profanity. As usual, the voice acting from Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, Jada Pinkett-Smith, David Schwimmer and Sacha Baron Cohen was superb as was Frances McDormand voicing Chantal with a convincing French accent. I also liked Stefano and Gia's Italian accents.
Overall this is an amusing third instalment of the franchise with the creme de la creme consisting of the witty dialogue, the character animation and the soundtrack. 8/10.