Madagascar 3: Eleanor's non-subtitled review.

Title: Madagascar 3: Europes Most Wanted
Directed: Eric Darnell, Conrad Vernon
Starring: Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, Jada Pinkett Smith, Sacha Baron Cohen, Cedric the Entertainer, Andy Richter, Frances MdDomand, Bryan Cranston, Martin Short
Genre: Animation, PG

 OK so I will start with confessing that I had to go and see this without subtitles. My job
involves taking service users to where they want to go, and this particular service user wanted to see Madagascar 3. Previously I have taken service users to the cinema lots of times without subtitles and immediately regretted it. The last time I took a service user (before this time obviously!!) I made a mental note to stop taking anyone to non-subtitled films; I had been with a fidgety service user to see the awful, dragged out, worlds most non-deaf aware film ever called ‘The Lorax’. I’m sure the film was great if you had understood a word of what was said, but it was an animation so I could not lip-read, the Lorax was constantly in shadows with a young boy who had clearly not hit puberty and had the most inaudible voice for my hearing to detect. I can still remember how I felt during that film and it felt like it went on for hours, trying so hard not to fall asleep (which the fidgety service user definitely helped with).

 Anyway, this review will probably not be like my future reviews. This review, I would like to tell you what I understood of the film (so please, if you haven’t watched the film and intend to watch it DO NOT read any further! – SPOILERS!!).  

 OK so here we go.

1.    The crew (Alex the Lion, Marty the Zebra, Gloria the Hippo and Melman the Giraffe and yes I googled that, didn’t know what they were called apart from Melman as I always think of him as Ross from Friends.) are all in Madagascar and the penguins leave for an adventure. Alex (the lion) thinks he hears them say they’re never coming back and has a dream that they are all old and still in Madagascar – not sure why that was relevant?

2.    I can’t remember how they get out of Madagascar and at this point am really confused because I thought they wanted to be in Madagascar and were loving it there.

3.    An evil woman pops into the story who treasures stuffed animals and really wants the lions head for her collection.

4.    The crew find a circus on a train and want to help them or work with them or something, the circus say no and then yes? And the crew get onboard the train.

5.    Monkeys get the deed for the circus (not sure why this is important either) and we learn why the circus failed previously – due to the Tiger trying to run through a small ring on fire and failing? Alex (the lion) helps get his confidence back and Tiger is able to do the act once again.

6.    The circus crew find a paper article about the animals missing from the zoo and are upset with the original crew because of some reason that I didn’t understand/hear – I thought that the crew were trying to get with the circus and enjoyed being with them?

7.    Evil woman still after the animals but the animals are tranquillised in front of the zoo (that the crew were originally trying to get too?) and the zoo keeper thinks that the evil woman is giving them back and gives her the reward (money).

8.    Evil woman rips up the cheque, she doesn’t want money, she wants the lion and attempts to shoot Alex but he is saved by the circus.

9.    I assume that the crew are happy to stay with the circus? And Marty starts to sing ‘I like to move it, move it’.

OK so that’s my understanding of the film. Because it was animated and largely relies on the animation side of things I was able to get a lot without dialogue. But there are so many things that I didn’t understand that could be solved with knowing the dialogue. It can be so frustrating only being able to laugh at the things I can visually see and missing the dialogue humour.

Although I didn’t enjoy not having subtitles I have always liked Madagascar films and my favourite part was the relationship between the circus bear and King Julien who falls instantly in love. It demonstrated that love is everywhere and it doesn’t matter how different two people are, what they look like, how old they are, if there’s a connection its right.

I also enjoyed the storyline about the Tiger, he got overconfident with the ring trick and when he failed he became grumpy and closed-minded. He lost hope, so the others around him (the circus) lost hope too. But with a bit of help he was able to do it again and become a brilliant act once more.

I feel unable to rate this film because I did not get all aspects of it and do not think it fair of me to judge it on what I have understood. I would say that it’s a brilliant film, the graphics were amazing (I watched it on 2D) and that my service user enjoyed it very much (although they were under the age of 8).

For those of you who are not deaf this will hopefully give you an insight to our world.