I’m genuinely surprised by all the rave reviews! I didn’t like the other Madagascar films, but I hear this is the best. I’ll definitely have to watch it now.
OWP: I know right? 
I think I’d put Madagascar 3 as the best animated film of the year so far. Sorry Pixar, but um, Brave didn’t cut it for me. I still enjoyed Pixar’s film, though, I’ll explain more in a future review.
But Madagascar 3 is a whole different animal (pun unintended) - it has a bigger scope, a romantic sub-plot, and the message (of redemption for one character and finding one’s true home for the Zoosters) was handled better and less clumsily than Brave’s.
EJE: Well, you like globe-trotting films, right? And foreign languages, right? (Frances McDormand’ character gets a beautiful French number from Edith Piaf in one memorable sequence) And animals, right?
So go see it already! 
Or if not in theatres, definitely a rental.
TDIT - I have to say, I actually love M3 and Brave equally, which is rarely the case for me to say about a Pixar film and a Dreamworks film. I think it’s because I’m well… remember my screenname? 
But I can understand why M3 has more appeal; my aunt and my brother saw M3 and Brave with me, and I had little doubt that they’d love M3 more (my aunt is a big animal lover/Madagascar series fan and my brother loved the combination of M3’s humor and great sound design, as he is obsessed with sound design). To me, M3 had more heart and soul than some of DW’s other films, and that’s saying something since I like pretty much all of the DW films I’ve seen; and with the addition of its great humor, action, entertaining story, and awesome characters, M3 easily stole my heart.
I did want to see this. Hopefully I get to. The clips on the internet make me laugh. 
OWP: I agree with you on all counts. I’m kinda behind on writing a review for Brave (which I saw when it bowed in Singapore cinemas back in August), but, long story short: [spoil]Madagascar 3 beat Brave by a little bit for me[/spoil].
LQstudeisPixar - They should be available on DVD and Blu-Ray now. At least, they are for Singapore. Or download them from iTunes.
I’m not too crazy about Brave, but this film was completely overrated.
Yes, it was better than the first two, but that doesn’t mean it’s great, taking in consideration how terrible those two were.
This one had some truly funny moments, but overall, I think it only had rave reviews because the evaluation bar for this franchise was too low.
Neither Pixar nor Dreamworks were at their best this year.
Well, fairy 'nuff, SoA. Have you seen Rise of the Guardians? I think I might miss out on it as I only have other movies in mind to watch in cinemas (and maybe a rewatch of Wreck It Ralph, which I’ve just seen today), and RotG is ending its cinema run here soon.
I was a bit underwhelmed with Pixar this year too. I was pleasantly surprised by Hotel Transyvlannia recently, and that was from Sony Pictures Animation, whose only decent film was Surf’s Up (the technical beauty of the waves and the fresh ‘mockumentary’ approach was what impressed me for the latter). And as you’ve probably guessed from the previous paragraph, Disney hit my expectations out of the park for Ralph.
It really seems like a backwards and upside-down year for the animation industry.
Yes, the mockumentary by Sony was pretty good. I wasn’t impressed by Hotel Transylvania, though.
Rise of the Guardians was just released here, for Christmas, so I haven’t watched it yet. Maybe it’ll change things and make Dreamworks shine this year.
Ah, interesting. What aspects of Transylvania did you feel could be improved?
I personally am a sucker for parodies/crossovers/deconstructive stories. So Hotel’s spoofing of the horror genre really appealed to me. Plus, Adam Sandler made a wicked Count. Yeah, the story was incredibly predictable (except for the revelatory scene in the village before the climax) and there were some parts where I wished they would slow down and have a decent conversation, but overall, it hit me on an ‘entertainment’ level more than Continental Drift did, and probably as much as Mad 3.
And the [spoil]Twilight spoof on the airline video[/spoil] nailed it for me.
Oh dear, I should really be copypasting this onto the Hotel Transylvania thread, haha.
I keep it short so that this won’t turn into an HT thread, but I thought it was childish and I didn’t like the animation and designs.
Not too far from my opinion of Madagascar 3, by the way, tough that one at least had nice landscapes, the only designs I didn’t like were the characters, but that’s a fault from the original.
I know I’m going to regret asking this, so don’t answer it; how could anyone not love Madagascar 3 or Brave?! 
I won’t elaborate on it not to spoil the rhetoricality of your question, but the thing is that films, like everything, either turn you on or off. It’s something very personal, as you can love a very bad film or hate a very good one.
I think Madagascar 3 isn’t awful, and that Brave is a good film. But I don’t really love either. There are too many turn offs in both for me.
Madagascar 3? I saw it a while back when I was at my cousin’s place. (In Dutch but it wasn’t too bad. Except Marty’s voice. Ouch.) But it was pretty cool nonetheless! It didn’t do much to me like the first two did but it was still enjoyable.
I missed the ending though. D:
Eh, as long as you saw the Katy Perry Fireworks sequence (which was mesmerising in 3-D on a cinema screen), you didn’t miss much regarding the ending, Badger. I felt the climax was pretty weak, and that they should’ve raised the stakes higher and made the showdown battle more dangerous. It tied up too neatly and felt like the end of a weekly cartoon episode than the finale of a motion picture.
If you want great animated film climaxes, it’ll be Up, Wall-E, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron or How to Train your Dragon, off the top of my head. Weak ones would be Madagascar 3, Cars 2 and Ice Age: Continental Drift (in the sense that the villain wasn’t threatening enough or the heroes weren’t in any huge danger in the final battle).
I did love the callback to [spoil]Circus Americano, though, it’s a great Chekov’s Gun.[/spoil]
Well I’m glad to hear that the Fireworks scene is a good scene. I’m not really sure how to distinguish between a strong or weak climax. Plus, I thought you liked those movies that you said had weak climaxes, and didn’t the main characters in those sequels [spoil]almost die[/spoil]? Sometimes the sequels are even easier to re-watch than some original films.
I guess you mean with them being sequels, it’s more likely for the audience to expect the characters to survive, and those original films have more depth considering they are the first ones? It’s fine if you think that. Sorry, I’m just curious, but I pretty much think I know what you mean. All of the ones you mentioned (weak or strong climaxes) are good too (but I have not yet seen Spirit 
).
First of all, it’s okay not to know how to distinguish between a strong or weak climax. It’s only my opinion, haha. And while I did like those movies, I have to be honest and say that they had some aspects that didn’t go well with me, like their climaxes.
Well, let me think, how would I classify a good climax?
In a nutshell, it would be one that pits the hero against a formidable villain, and emerging a different character afterwards. The villain can be anything from an actual character, to the natural elements, to even an internal struggle. Do note that there are SPOILERS AHEAD (all the following movies have been released on DVD). I’ve bolded the titles ahead of the spoilers, in case anyone doesn’t want to read them.
Finding Nemo, for example, had a fantastic climax, even though there was no “antagonist” per se. This is because Marlin has to face a fear he has, of letting Nemo go (both literally and figuratively). When Nemo had to return alone into the net to save their friend Dory and the tuna, Marlin’s will is put to the test, and this reveals his strength.
Sometimes, it is not the main protagonist who has to face a challenge, but the deuteragonist or even the tritagonist. In Wall-E, the titular robot is already “perfect” in a character-development sense. He is merely the agent of change for every other character, from Eve learning what it means to love another being, to M-O overcoming his neurotism, to Captain McCree experiencing his epiphany that there is a greater world beyond the confines of his vessel.
The villain might be even a concept. In Up, Carl had to learn to move on from his Ellie’s death. This is represented visually by him using the house to fly back and save Kevin and Russell, instead of staying on Paradise Falls. Muntz, who can’t let go of his obsession with capturing Kevin, not only loses the bird, but his life, when he is “taken” by the house that has been holding Carl back from experiencing life. While Muntz is a villain, the real “test” in the movie was Carl letting go of his past and looking forward to the future.
Sometimes, the villain might be a good enough reason alone to say a climax is good, especially if it takes the viewer by surprise. King Candy’s reveal in Wreck-It Ralph is one that comes to mind. Sometimes, it is the climatic action itself, like in Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, where Spirit takes a literal leap of faith across a gorge. Or it might be the denouement, like How to Train Your Dragon’s touching post-battle scene where Stoick the Vast grieves over Hiccup’s body.
Madagascar 3 had a lousy climax IMO because there was no real sense of peril for Alex and his gang (for me). DuBois was too easily defeated (although I love the use of Circus Americano as a Chekov’s gun). The Zoosters don’t emerge different characters afterwards - in fact, Vitaly is the one who went through the most change in his quest for redemption.
Cars 2 had an awkward and overlong gag with Lightning chasing Mater and the mistaken interpretation of “bomb”. Again, the baddies were dispatched too easily, and there was never any real doubt that Mater would unmask the true villain Scooby-Doo style.
And Ice Age: Continental Drift had a weak villain with zero motivation to begin with. Why was Captain Gutt so bent on enslaving the Ice Age gang when they had done him no wrong? It only got personal when Manny sunk Gutt’s ship in self-defence, and then it became a simple case of tit-for-tat revenge. The climax was also not really high stakes enough, with Manny comically using his weight (which Gutt has been teasing throughout the entire movie) to defeat the pirate.
The fact that they’re sequels has nothing to do with it. Some of the best climaxes I’ve seen were in sequels, such as Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, Star Trek Into Darkness and Kung Fu Panda 2, off the top of my head. The fact that they’re the latest instalments in the series means there’s even more reason for a character to perish, especially if you haven’t seen any in the series (cos it’s unlikely a sequel would exist if the hero died in the first movie).
Some movies that were mediocre for me had excellent climaxes, like Shrek The Fourth (in which a Chekov’s Gun of Fiona’s rhyme about tying knots is used, and Shrek discovers how much he takes for granted in life) and Toy Story 3 (where the toys faced their mortality and were prepared to die together).
Sorry for the super long ramble LQstudiesPixar, couldn’t resist.
Use antagonist where you use villain and use villain where you use antagonist and it’s all much better 
Oh yeah, I shoulda spotted that, especially me being a sub and I’m supposed to be good at language. My bad.
Wow, TDID! Maybe I’m making too big a deal here, but I thought that was really nice of you to dedicate your post as an article that answered my questions! And yes, I do see what you mean by the sequels having not so strong of a climax, although not BECAUSE they are sequels. I hope I didn’t sound too naive when I asked the sequel question. Another thing was that I was confusing the climax with the the whole end of a movie. I forgot that the climax is only the most intense part toward the end before the falling action and then the conclusion.
I also have not seen a couple of those films. There’s Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted which I really want to see, Ice Age: Continental Drift which should be fun, and then Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron which I know you really love. Don’t worry, I didn’t feel spoiled. I’m actually kind of weird and don’t get upset if I know the ending of a movie before I see it sometimes.
Next week or maybe the week after, I might actually be encouraged enough to write my opinion of a climax. I have a lot of similar ideas to yours, but also other ideas and reasonings that try to figure out why some are stronger than others. I don’t know yet, but I’m interested in doing that…
A strong climax is like a strong everything: there’s no formula to create one, or else every film would use it and presto! Guaranteed success!
But I agree that this film didn’t have the climax as a particularly favourable point. It was the best of the bunch, though.