Time to go Home

Rating: 5/10 (18 March 2017)

Well, it seems as if they couldn't leave the movie with our four heroes happy back in the plains of Africa because, well, they are starting to get homesick. Actually, the Penguins and the Monkeys had already headed home, via Monte Carlo to do a bit of gambling with all of the gold and jewels that they dug up in the previous adventure, and our heroes are starting to scratch their heads, wondering when they are going to get back again. Well, as it turns out the Penguins have completely forgotten about them so our heroes decide to head off the Europe. There is only one problem – after causing a raucous at the casino they catch the attention of Dubois, a dangerous animal hunter who wants a lion's head on her wall, so they do what any self respecting animal does, and join the circus.
This film seems to move away from what the original two were exploring, namely the animals returning to their natural habitat. Okay, the animals don't actually live in Madagascar, but that was because they fell overboard and landed up there. However, we now return to civilisation (for want of a better word, though maybe I should say 'industrialised world') and have to learn how to perform in a circus. Okay, there is the problem that carnies (that is circus performers) tend to stick together and not particularly like strangers, but the Monkeys, taking on the disguise of the King of Versaille (which I have to admit is a pretty awesome disguise), buy the circus as a way to get onto the train.
The problem is that the circus is, well, run down, particularly since one of the star performers ended up failing in one of his acts and now spends his time moping in the corner. In the end, as can be expected from a Hollywood movie, everything turns out for the best, though the whole adage of there being no place like home is a bit of a misnomer because, as our heroes discover, once you leave home then all of a sudden home is no longer what you could consider home. In fact once you leave home then in reality you can never actually go back home again.
I have to admit that I didn't like this film as much as the second one in the franchise, but maybe because the whole joining the circus pretty much introduced a whole heap of new characters that I found quite difficult to start relating too. It wasn't as if they were bad, or annoying, it was just that they were new and, okay, somewhat annoying. I guess the whole circus thing sort of annoyed me as well. Okay, it did have a plot, and it did end reasonably well, though I guess the other thing was that Dubois also started to get under my skin by the end of the film. Sure, it is called Europe's Most Wanted, and by the end having Dubois in the film was necessary, but I still didn't particularly like her. The film was okay, but nowhere near as good as the second in the series.