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 Third
time’s still got charm for this latest entry in the blockbuster Ice Age
family film series. The good folks at Blue Sky Studios have given us
another chapter in the lives of their unusual tribe of prehistoric
critters. Manny, the woolly mammoth, Diego the sabre-toothed tiger and
Sid the sloth have carved out a happy niche of domesticity for
themselves joined by Manny’s bride, Ellie and her adopted possum
brothers, Crash & Eddie. More joy is on its way as Ellie is expecting,
leaving her already neurotic hubby in a state of constant panic. As
Manny plays the overprotective daddy-to-be, the pending arrival causes
Sid and Diego to reassess their places in the world. The fearsome
feline considers leaving their little pack believing that the good life
is turning him into a housecat, while the sloth ponders a family life of
his own.
Sid’s
wish is granted when he literally falls into motherhood; tripping into
an underground cavern where three eggs in a nest have apparently been
waiting for him to discover them. Sid takes to being guardian of the
three eggs, now named Egbert, Shelly and Yoko, like a sloth to a tree
and the accident-prone herbivore juggles his new responsibilities as a
parent while desperately trying to keep the eggs from cracking. But
crack they do and the surprises inside are like nothing Sid’s surrogate
family has ever seen before. Three rambunctious little dinos are more
than the well-meaning Sid can handle and the sweet T-rexes destroy any
semblance of order. When the babies’ very large and scary mother comes
looking for her lost offspring, the mammoth tribe follow her down to the
mysterious cavern where Sid has been taken along with the babies. In
something out of Arthur Conan Doyle or Jules Verne, the tribe finds a world that time forgot,
full of big, hungry reptiles and carnivorous flora. No longer the
biggest things on the planet, Manny and the pregnant Ellie enlist the
help of an eccentric, swashbuckling weasel named Buck, who’s been living
amongst the dinosaurs long enough to guide the tribe to Sid. Hopefully,
they’ll be able to rescue the silly sloth and get back home in time
before the stork (pterodactyl?) brings Manny and Ellie’s new
arrival.
This
latest chapter in the Ice Age series has kept much of it’s off-hand
humour (- Mostly delivered by John Leguizamo voicing the wacky Sid.)
and is heartwarming in its continuing “We Are Family” theme. More
entertaining than 2006’s Ice Age: The Meltdown, cuteness abounds in this
story of babies everywhere; I could picture the queues of kids in Toys R
Us all grasping their baby dino sets, or little girls with fuzzy baby
Peaches stuffies firmly in hand. The dinosaurs in Ice Age even look
like someone from the merchandising department designed them; all
rubbery and colourful and none too scary. Following the recent trend in
animated features; Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is shot in 3D, which
plays particularly well during the action scenes as in an early moment
when Diego gets bested by an obnoxious gazelle. Of course, Ice Age
would mean nothing at all to me without the inclusion of Scrat: This
sequel gives my favourite squirrel/rat hybrid lots of face time as the
twitchy little guy finally finds another obsession to replace his
ever-present hard nut to crack. Scrat falls in love! Slightly higher
on the evolutionary scale than our hero, the beguiling little
critterette called Scratte, begins their relationship in a fierce battle
for Scrat’s only means of food. Rivalry gives way to l’amour and soon
the two are shacking up in tree, the acorn long forgotten, or is it?
With all the rises and falls in a typical day for Scrat, the 3D comes
over really well.
The
lock this series has on the family film market isn’t going away anytime
soon. The quality of the films is still there, if a little wan. To my
mind, the Madagascar films are far funnier and the animation styles of
both series seem to be getting eerily similar.
Does
there need to be a fourth Ice Age movie? Not really. Will there be a
fourth Ice Age movie? Most likely. As long as the quality and
entertainment bar never drops below this level, that’s not such a bad
thing.
~ The
Lady Miz Diva
June
30th 2009
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