After the events of "Ice Age: The Meltdown", life begins to change for Manny and his friends: Scrat is still on the hunt to hold onto his beloved acorn, while finding a possible romance in a female sabre-toothed squirrel named Scratte. Manny and Ellie, having since become an item, are expecting a baby, which leaves Manny anxious to ensure that everything is perfect for when his baby arrives.
Diego is fed up with being treated like a house-cat and ponders the notion that he is becoming too laid-back. Sid begins to wish for a family of his own, and so steals some dinosaur eggs which leads to Sid ending up in a strange underground world where his herd must rescue him, while dodging dinosaurs and facing danger left and right, and meeting up with a one-eyed weasel known as Buck who hunts dinosaurs intently.
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
Maxabout Review
Mediocre third flick. A Cartoon Suffering from Freezer Burn.. .
Friday, July 03, 2009
The second "Ice Age" film was, like most thawed, refrozen and re-thawed entrees, somewhat lacking in freshness. The recent 3-D remake of "Journey to the Center of the Earth" was fun, but a bit of a disappointment for its studio, financially. So that makes doing yet another "Ice Age" cartoon -- in 3-D this time, and with a plot lifted from "Journey to the Center of the Earth" -- a really great idea, right?
It's a decent kid-friendly fare, it's a film that's hard to get excited about if you're over 12. Very small children will laugh at the squirrel's antics; their slightly older siblings may enjoy the junior "Jurassic Park" thrills. This is pretty silly stuff, even for a children's movie, and it sort of sells out the one original point the series used to have: Here was a prehistoric adventure that refused to go the yabba-dabbo-do route.
Actually the whole cartoon feels a little like a slow fadeout. There's nothing new here, and not nearly enough jokes. Unlike the Pixar cartoons -- where you know every gag's been polished until it positively shines -- the slapstick here feel tossed off.
Plotting is limited, stretching the importance of family while at the same time doing nothing of any interest. Splitting the team up takes away from the fun, too many secondary characters only serve as a distraction, and the perils, which include plants, a large dino named Rudy, and floating lava will thrill the kids but be too dull for parents. This puts a damper on the 3-D animation as well, which has some nice snow and forest-filled landscapes but nothing that, figuratively, jumps off the screen about the characters or action.
Historical inaccuracies aside, the film trades on its adorable characters while offering little in the way of plot, which is comprised mainly of chase scenes. Strangely, the 3D effects (available in selected cinemas) are seriously underused, with just the occasional 'ooh' moment as a reptilian tail juts from the screen.
With a voice cast including Simon Pegg, Queen Latifah, Seann William Scott and Denis Leary, it's an improvement on the underwhelming second instalment, but only just. Still Pegg, voicing the swashbuckling Buck, provides a few laughs, while Scrat's continuing adventures are once again the highlight.
Leguizamo's slurring, goofy performance as Sid is the most fun. Romano is well matched with the cautious, nasally Manny, as is Leary to the vicious Diego. And Latifah is sassy as Ellie. Simon Pegg gives the movie some life as Buck, a nutty safari-hunter who loves the thrill of the chase.
The film is so tired and ultimately boring it is hard to even find the energy to write about it. Taking into account the screenwriters had this crew of prehistoric talking animals would lead me to believe they could come up with something — anything — more interesting than remaking Journey to the Center of the Earth even if they do have the unfortunate timing of releasing only one year after an intended remake of the same film. But that's no excuse.
The physical comedy gags are too far between and all that's left is a lot of outlandish personalities, most of which are more annoying than funny.
There are better animated films this year, but it has been a great year on that front. Ice Age isn’t as ambitious as Up or as funny and daring as Monsters vs. Aliens. The "Ice Age" series is beginning to feel like its characters -- big and creaky and headed for extinction.