Ice Age (2002)
Directors: Chris Wedge, Carlos Saldanha
Starring: Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, Goran Visnjic, Jack Black
Certificate: U
Genre: Animation, comedy, Adventure
Awards: None
Ice Age follows three animals as they try to bring a small human child back to his family. Manny (Romano) is a cynical, sarcastic and unsocial mammoth who is only helping the child so that the other two will leave him alone; Sid (Leguizamo) the sloth is the doofus of the group who sticks with the other two as he knows he can't survive on his own and Diego (Leary) is the double agent sabre-tooth tiger who really wants the baby so he can bring it to his pack.This is my favourite animated film ever. The characters all have different traits that make them recognisable. The comedy is really well scripted. It's clever and doesn't just use Scrat and Sid as the only comic relief (unlike most of the two sequels). The music goes brilliantly with it especially "Send me on my way" by Rusted Root for the mid-film montage. It plays with your emotions so well and can have you laughing one minute and in tears the next. The villain is the only proper villain in the whole franchise, as he can talk, order people about and is altogether sinister. A lot of people won't agree with this, but I think this is even better than Toy Story.
*****Brilliant
Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006)
Director: Carlos Saldanha
Starring: Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, Queen Latifah, Seann William Scott, Josh Peck
Certificate: U
Genre: Animation, comedy, Adventure
Awards: None
Oh god... If you're going to do a sequel to a good film, this is not the way to go. Ice Age 2 returns to the three main characters, and adds three brand new ones. There's Ellie (Latifah) the female mammoth who thinks she's a possum and two possum brothers named Crash (Scott) and Eddie (Peck) who are so annoying you'll want to and eat them even if you're a vegetarian. I understand that they are supposed to be irritated, but when nothing they ever do is funny and the only thing your hoping is that they will both die all the way through the film. The plot is quite simple; The ice is melting, run!You can tell that the original writers didn't take part in the sequel as the comedy is definitely worse than the original. Actually, everything is worse than the original. Manny loses all of his wit while he tries to impress Ellie, Diego the fearless tiger becomes useless when he is afraid of the water and the villains of the film are prehistoric shark like beings that can't talk. The best silent villains are sidekicks like Kevin in Sin City or Kroenen in Hellboy. Having a silent main villain makes the film feel like it's missing something. Sohto in the original was perfect as the bad guy and I know it would be stupid to bring him back, but if this film had as good a villain as him, it would be a hell of a lot better.
**Pretty bad
Ice Age: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs (2009)
Director: Carlos Saldanha, Mike Thumeier
Starring: Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, Queen Latifah, Seann William Scott, Josh Peck, Simon Pegg
Certificate: U
Genre: Animation, comedy, adventure
This film was much better than it's predecessor, but still not even close to the original. The introduction of the crazy warrior weasel Buck (Pegg) who becomes the comic relief of the film. This time, Sid steals some dinosaur eggs to raise as his own, but the mother soon comes looking for them and takes them plus Sid back to the underground world full of dinosaurs. Now the rest of the gang (including a heavily pregnant Ellie) must rescue him.
This film has quite a few funny moments, but it's a different type of humour to the first film. While the first film had more witty and mature jokes, this seems to be aiming at a lower age range. All of the original characters have lost their charm by now (except Sid who is still a loveable doofus) and the villain isn't very interesting either, but even with all this, it's miles better than number two. Now let's hope that the fourth one won't mess it all up again.
****Good
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