Madagascar 3 and What DreamWorks Animation has Become

Well, this has been a rather good year for animation with most of the major feature animation houses having chart topping big hits, while even the acclaimed anime import, The Secret World of Arrietty, had the best North American box office performance in the history of Studio Ghibli (producers of the Oscar winning Spirited Away).

 For all that success, I saw Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted again and I am reminded of why DreamWorks Animation is the studio to watch in this golden age. This series began in 2005 as a rather craven attempt to undercut Disney's film, The Wild, about urbanized wild animals thrown into the wilderness for real, much like how Antz was produced to head off Pixar's A Bug's Life.

However, this film series grew with each film to become something more as the Zoo animals struggle to survive and get home, regardless of the fact that they are stumbling about, never knowing what they are doing. In doing so, this third film comes to a glorious payoff as the Zoo animals desperately join Circus Zarcosa in Europe. In a lesser film, you would expect the film would keep to the formula with Alex the Lion and his friends bringing disaster to the circus as complete amateurs the moment they stepped on the circus train. For a while, the film strings you along even as they become the circus' owners with veiled threats from the residents if Alex and company ruin their business.

Instead, you will see that the circus animals are all a bunch of bumbling incompetents themselves who have lost all confidence in themselves while Alex's gang proves to be the answer.  As the Zoo animals find a way to help the circus rebuild, there is a joyous feeling of growing love, whether it being simple friendship with Marty the Zebra and Stefano the Sea Lion or full romance with Alex and Gia the Jaguar, as all involved find their ways to become more than anyone thought they were.

This all comes to a head at the critical performance in London, when they have their one chance to impress an American promoter.  Disaster threatens when Vitaly the Tiger is found packing to leave, only to be inspired by Alex, the one for whom he had been most hostile, to give his impossible ring jumping act one last chance.  When that succeeds perfectly, that proves to be just the opening act for an astounding grand performance that you would expect would end in a humiliating catastrophe.  Yet, it doesn't.

Instead, it becomes a mindblower of a circus show that would make the owners of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus watch in awe.  Set to Katy Perry's song, "Firework," your heart will soar as the animals pull off the impossible as you realize that for the first time Alex and the gang are succeeding at their own initiative as free creatures who have made their own place in the world.  It goes even deeper as you see Alex and Gia fly and dive about with such loving trust in each other as they each subconsciously realize what they have been missing.  Furthermore, as much as I applaud my favourite theatre's plans to drop their 3D projectors, I am reminded of why DreamWorks has made the best use of it, making it a legitimate enhancement to their films, and not merely a gimmick as the circus show becomes such an immerse joy to experience.

That cinematic beauty and the powerful drama that follows show what DreamWorks has become: a film company that has many a cinematic mistake in its past, but has learned from them to become a producer of such cinematic excellence that Pixar used to have all to itself. As that rival enters a regrettable lesser period, give me a company like DA that never had that rarefied aura and allowed their mistakes to become building blocks for something better.