Probably not really Europe's most wanted

Rating: 4/10 (18 July 2012)

So our heroes have escaped and living free in their native African habitat; however, they long to return to their cramped, damp enclosures in Manhattan's Central Park Zoo where they can stand on concrete and have peanuts hurled at them by children visiting the city. Um...look just go with this premise, alright? OK, the only way to return to New York, despite the fact that the penguins can build their own boats and airplanes, is to save a dying Italian circus. Um...look, again, just go with the premise. For adults, if you can suspend your disbelief and go with the silly plot you get...well, not much in return. Voice work by Stiller, Schwimmer and Rock involves them basically playing themselves with some effort at vocal demonstrability to punch up a thin script. Like "Tintin", the strategy employed here is to keep the action moving at a frenetic pace as filler for old-fashioned concepts like dialog and story. Anyway, younger children will be delighted that the animators use all 64 colors in their big Crayola box and by multiple dance sequence. Older children and adults will be distracted by questions as to why Gia, the female leopard character has human boobs much like the eleven-foot cat people in "Avatar" and why the Captain Chantal DuBois character is drawn with near obscene pulchritude? In short, 2012 may go down as the "Summer of Disappointing Animation".