Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

[THE FOLLOWING IS A REPRINT OF REDBLOG'S REVIEW OF ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS DURING ITS THEATRICAL RELEASE LAST SUMMER. ICE AGE: DOTD IS NOW ON DVD AND AVAILABLE FOR RENTAL IN THE REDBOXES.]

I admit I never gave much thought to the Ice Age movies—I dimly recall seeing the first one, skipped the second one, and was trying to come up with any reason at all not to see the latest, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.

But since it was in a tight race for first place at the box office and since my two illustrious co-writers here at redblog were off enjoying (or not) the grown-up treats of Public Enemies, and in order to steer my four-year-old nephew off his constant pleadings to see Transformers 2, I ended up seeing Ice Age: Dinos on a 3D screen. And then watching Ice Age 2: The Meltdown the next day.

And you know what? I certainly didn’t hate either of them. I’m not much of a Ray Romano fan (no, everyone certainly does not love Raymond), and Fox’s Ice Age franchise has always just reeked a bit too much of carefully calculated, test-screened and focus-grouped slick product. But as millions of parents have learned, if you’re going to have to watch a non-Pixar animated movie 100 times a year on DVD, these Ice Age flicks aren’t the worst that could happen.

Oh, I’m sure the Ice Age mix of Looney Tunes-style slapstick and treacly, heartwarming message wears thin after about the 50th kid-mandated viewing, but I found Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs a decent time-passer, filled with enough nonstop, kinda nonsensical, wacky humor and good-old-fashioned adventure to stave off adult-onset boredom. No, it’s probably not better than Ice Age 2: The Meltdown, but only by a few shades less, and only in that way that all franchises start to wear threadbare and thin by their third go-round.

I’m not sure the plot matters much, nor did it seem to matter to the filmmakers (co-directors Carlos Saldanha from IA2 and Mike Thurmeier from the Scrat short No Time For Nuts), but here goes: Mammoths Manny (Romano) and Ellie (Queen Latifah) are expecting a Woolly bundle of baby Snuffleupagus (leading Manny to construct a playground while displaying some pretty impressive tool and art skills for a prehistoric pachyderm).

A feeling-left-out Sid goes off and stumbles onto a trio of dino eggs. Sid plays “mom,” the eggs hatch, the baby Rexes are adorably chaotic, Mama Rex comes back to fetch them (in a scene that, when it comes to conveying the awesome size and heft of a stomping T-Rex, is almost as visually impressive as anything in the Jurassic Park films or King Kong), and ends up hauling hapless Sid back to her Lost World, a Conan-Doyle-esque tropical underground land time forgot. So our friendly herd-family heads down under to rescue Sid.

What? It could happen.

Those of you who insist that mammoths and dinosaurs did not co-exist, or that an underground world would lack the necessary sunlight to create a lush, tropical rain forest, well, you can’t prove it couldn't, can you? Anything is possible when we’re talking about boosting box office by jumping the dino.

The real problem with a three-quel like this, as seen in the more crass Shrek franchise, is that each new film, the filmmakers and crowd-pleasing studios have to bring back old favorites (like neurotic Manny, Denis Leary’s sardonic Diego the saber-tooth tiger, and John Leguizamo’s series MVP, Sid the Sloth), as well as new favorites from the last film (Ellie and her “brother possums” Crash and Eddie--Seann William Scott and Josh Peck, respectively). And of course, there has to be a certain amount of Scrat the Saber-tooth Squirrel's Wile E. Coyote vignettes, this time with a new love interest, Scratte.

Then the latest film, for marketing tie-in and toy-sale reasons, must have new characters. This time in addition to some dino babies, the newcomer is Buck the Weasel--a mammalian castaway in DinoLand, voiced with delightful Cockney abandon by Simon Pegg (Shawn of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and of course Scotty in the new Star Trek)—a sort of deranged English answer to Shrek’s swashbuckling, sarcastic Puss in Boots.

As usually happens by the third film, that makes for a pretty crowded and disjointed field. Luckily Pegg’s too-long-in-the-jungle, Errol Ferret performance manically carries much of the movie’s middle. And while some have complained that too much of Scrat and his acorn woes is not a good thing, I still found his and Scratte’s love-hate slapstick struggles amusing—especially a completely off-the-wall bit where Scrat’s one-time adored and even deified acorn mourns its newly single status to the tune of “Alone Again, Naturally.”

There’s also a nice bit of creeping dread going on in Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs—even more so than the thawed sea monsters and hungry vultures of Ice Age 2. Buck’s gone all Ahab over Rudy, a mysterious white Gigantosaurus that terrorizes the underground dino park. The ongoing hints of Rudy’s menacing presence are nicely done—not too scary for the wee ones, but suspenseful and otherworldly enough to keep grown-ups tuned in.

The production studio Blue Sky (the Pixar to 20th Century Fox’s Disney) does a fairly amazing job with the visuals, from the lovely, rich textures of rocks and eggs, to a genuinely stunning presentation of massive dinosaur weight and size. The Ice Age franchise was the second (after Shrek) to seriously challenge Pixar’s animation domination, but where Pixar’s ouvre borders on art, Ice Age is pure entertainment, dolloping on broad physical comedy and heartwarming messages instead of the sort of brittle, snarky cynicism that sometimes seems to overwhelm the Shrek series.

Ice Age 3 has its flaws, many of which I’m sure will become gratingly clear to parents by spring, as the DVD spins ever on in the play room. Even with the addition of the dinos and Buck, things can’t help but feel a bit retreaded--and you can certainly question the need for a third Ice Age, other than the obvious cash grab. And for me, the proceedings always come to lumbering halt whenever the movie gets too mushily Manny-centric, especially in the first Buck-free, dino-free third. (Let’s not just let Manny be Manny. I never cared much for Romano’s “guys are guys” musings on marriage and family—they aren’t any more interesting or amusing when they come from the mouth of a mammoth.)

But the Ice Age filmmakers aren’t fools. When the pace starts to flag, they pop in more Scrat silliness, more of Sid's sublime buffoonery, more of Buck babbling, and more thrilling action vistas and sequences. Naturally, the box-office success of Ice Age 3 means there will be an Ice Age 4… and probably a 5. I suspect the soup is going to keep getting thinner, but this time out, I still found it palpable, even enjoyable.

Of course, I’m not the one who’s going to have to hear it playing in the background throughout all of 2010.

Comments

[micro sd speicherkarten]

This is really great animation movie.It has everything to entertain the whole family.It is as good as other two in the series.

[Lisa]

I liked it the best out of all three, i laughed all the way thru. the kid in me is waiting for the next one :)