Fun Ice Age Manages a New Dawn
After Sid the Sloth (John Leguizamo) inadvertently comes upon a trio of hatching Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaur eggs and takes the children as his own, the angry mother makes her way from a secret tropical land under the ice taking him and her kids back down to it with her. Realizing they have to help him in order to protect their unusual herd, Wooly Mammoth Manny (Ray Romano), his pregnant wife Ellie (Queen Latifah), Saber-toothed Tiger Diego (Dennis Leary) and marsupial brothers Crash (Seann William Scott) and Eddie (Josh Peck) head into this lost world to find him.
Scrat's back - and this time he's found a friend - in 20th Century Fox's Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
While there they encounter many dangers, not the least of which is a gigantic dinosaur so fearsome over mamma Rex trembles before him. Thankfully the group does encounter a mentally unhinged guide, a one-eyed weasel named Buck (Simon Pegg) eager to lend a helping hand and assist the group in bringing Sid back to the ice age alive.
A definite improvement over the utterly forgettable Ice Age: The Meltdown, the 3D Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs can be a heck of a lot of fun. Returning to the core basics that made the 2002 original a surprise smash, by and large this please third chapter in the popular franchise hits a lot of right notes which kept me more or less amused.
That does not mean to say it is particularly memorable. Like a solid piece of television entertainment you might find on say the Disney Channel, the film never tries to be more than the simplistic piece of family entertainment that it is. The morals it attempts to trade in are suitably comforting, they’re delivered with all the subtlety of an anvil dropped on a coyote’s head. In other words, Pixar this ain’t, and those expecting more than just a few snappy one-liners, some exciting three-dimensional action set pieces and a lot zippy sight gags have got a whole other thing coming to them.
For once I’m perfectly okay with that. Unlike the last chapter, the screenplay thankfully stays out of the gutter, nary a poop, pee or flatulence joke to be found. More, the filmmakers remember that the reason the first film worked was mainly due to the refreshingly honest way it dealt with the core relationships, and other than Buck (who is nicely, if suitably zanily, voiced by Pegg) the storyline eschews from introducing too many newcomers who would take the focus away from the core group to which it belongs.
Additionally, I don’t know if the thought of working in 3D gave the animators a reason to be more diligent and careful in their work but for whatever reason this entry in the series is by far the best looking of the entire trio. The animation is crisp and colorful, and even with the annoying glasses reflecting light from the aisles the image was still so immersive a part of me couldn’t help but sit in the theater in wide-eyed awe.
On the flip side, I never thought I’d say this but the adventures of that wily devil Scrat got a little old this time. One their own, these short, Chuck Jones style vignettes are reasonably bewitching. The problem here is that there are just far too many of them, the little guy engaging in an acorn-fueled romance with a female counterpart that only served to extend the running time and little else.
Granted, without them they’re be barely enough material to compile a feature-length cartoon so I guess they do serve some sort of purpose. More, if they were ever made available as a DVD of their own I might be compelled to pick it up, the little guy’s adventures from first film to last the most consistently humorous bits this series offers. I just think that, this time at least, the filmmakers should have known when to say when, a little bit less Scrat and little bit more drama and we might have a movie worth more than a passing smile.
Still, a good-natured smile is pretty good considering just how far things had fallen for the franchise. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs didn’t change my life and it certainly didn’t take me to a plateau worth lingering on. It did, however, keep me entertained while it was projected up there upon the screen, and considering the sorry state of what usually passes for a family friendly feature that’s one happy component I’m not about to give the critical cold shoulder to.
Film Rating: êê1/2 (out of 4)
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