Thankfully he is back, onscreen more than ever in the computer animated sequel “Ice Age: The Meltdown.” His shorts are classic, so funny and warm-heartedly hilarious I couldn’t wait to see what he’d try to do next. The smallish imbecilic mammal is a born star, worthy of his own series of skits and the perfect character to warm an audience up for a giddy good time at the Cineplex. I love the little guy, and while I can’t imagine an entire feature based on his acorn-hunting escapades would be all that interesting, in moderation Scrat is a bona fide sensation.

I cannot, however, say the same thing for this misguided sequel. Revolving around the melting of their pristine polar habitat, returning protagonists Manny the wooly mammoth (Ray Romano), Sid the sloth (John Leguizamo) and Diego the saber-toothed tiger (Dennis Leary) must race against time to find away to survive before the coming floods drown them all. During their journey they encounter a cute mammoth named Ellie (Queen Latifah) who is under the mistaken impression she’s actually a possum. Misadventures, most revolving around either the dim-witted Sid or a pair of actual possum brothers named Crash (Seann William Scott) and Edie (Josh Peck), unsurprisingly ensue.

While the original “Ice Age’ wasn’t the greatest animated film ever made, it was still an awfully good one and a heck of a lot of fun. Its three main characters oozed charm, the actor’s clearly having a grand time bringing them to life, and the unifying threads holding it all together were entertainingly solid. Better, there were dual threats lurking on the periphery (the tigers hunting the trio and Diego’s own inner demons leading him to maybe betray his new friends), each creating a sense of tension powering things to their conclusion.

The sequel never achieves this concrete sensation of danger or suspense. More so, the unifying strands supposedly crafted to hold the story together simply do not work. The threat generated by the impending flood is minimal. The drama of Manny dealing with Elli (and the fact that they might be the last two of their species) is boring. The danger created by two recently unthawed aquatic predators is nonexistent. All-in-all, the whole thing is about as nerve wracking as playing a game of chess against a newborn baby.

But then, “Ice Age: The Meltdown” is a comedy, a family friendly adventure that is supposed to warm the heart, tickle the funny bone and produce loud bursts of laughter. In all honesty, I could totally buy into those thoughts if the movie was actually funny more than a time or two every now and then. It isn’t, though, much of it so herky-jerky and haphazard it is almost like the filmmakers through pieces of the film into a blender and reassembled them after a thorough mixing. Bits here and there are undeniably enjoyable (I just loved an extended skit with Sid and a group of diminutive sloth where they proclaim him their fire god) and the vocal actors all acquit themselves nicely, but overall the whole thing is frustratingly underwhelming.

The script by Peter Gaulke and Gerry Swallow is anemic even for a kid flick. The moralizations are simplistic while the humor is decidedly adult, almost too adult. Where Pixar always seems to manage to make their animated confections work on two levels, one for the little tykes and one for their parents, the creators behind this have gotten that delicate balance mixed up crafting a storyline too limp for adults and jokes too crude for their children. It isn’t always out of whack, and I liked the way the writers tried to make Diego’s fear of water into a universal metaphor relating to life in general, but the picture overall just doesn’t work.

Luckily, there is Scrat. He’s a hoot, a genuinely funny enigma inside a movie searching desperately for laughs. His bits had me rolling, nearly to the point of hysterics, and I can’t imagine anything more wondrously silly than watching this animal trying to breakdown the pearly gates in search of a single giant acorn. He isn’t enough to make “Ice Age: The Meltdown” worthwhile, not all by his lonesome, but he is enough to make me smile, and after enduring a frigid family feature as cold as this one that’s a trait guaranteed to warm my heart any day.

Film Rating: êê  (out of 4)