Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted 

With this release, Men in Black 3 is no longer the season's most unwarranted third installment of a creaking movie franchise. We meet Ben Stiller's showboating lion, Chris Rock's loudmouthed zebra, Jada Pinkett Smith's sassy hippo and David Schwimmer's neurotic giraffe as they travel across the globe to get back to their precious New York City zoo home. This time around, they find themselves in Europe, where they become the targets of a villainous, French animal-control officer (Frances McDormand), who wants nothing but the lion's head on her wall. Relying on everything for corny sight gags (wait 'til you see the colored Afros) to cockamamie European stereotypes (man, I thought Transformers 2 made the French look bad!), this Madagascar is an overload on the senses that will dazzle kids while dazing and confusing parents. Then again, it is difficult to complain about a film where Sacha Baron Cohen's amusingly deluded lemur has a torrid, head-over-paws love affair with one of those little bicycle-riding bears. By Craig D. Lindsey