Ice Age: The Meltdown

April 2, 2006

Rated: PG Runtime: 90 min Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Ice Age: The Meltdown picks up pretty much where the first film ends. The animals are enjoying their newly found safety from the ice in a big valley surrounded by a giant ice wall. All the little creatures spend their days lounging about and making fun of Sid (Leguizamo) (the sloth). Life is truly grand in the animal kingdom. Not that, any of that is a bad thing but as the old saying goes… All good things must come to an end.

Ice Age: The Meltdown The story is a very preachy tale to help familiarize children and some adults on the dangers of global warming. I’m sure you’re thinking that’s just my opinion but you’d be wrong because they even say it. Not the familiar part, the global warming part. They say it a LOT!

Manny (Romano), Diego (Leary) and Sid are on top of the ice wall and see for themselves that the ice is in fact melting so they gather the herd and start to leave their home to seek out a boat of sorts that the local vulture tells them about. I found this odd, as this would be counter productive to the vulture’s needs if everyone lives. Odd but it worked for the most part. The herd walks for a couple days and then through a few strange happenstances, Manny finds another Mammoth in the form of Ellie (Latifah). If you remember the first one, Manny believes there are more mammoths but everyone around tells him he�s the last of his kind. He was right and they were all wrong, and we get to see it, I feel tears again , I�m better.

The problem is Ellie thinks she’s an opossum and doesn’t believe she’s a mammoth. Do you see the wackiness coming from all directions? I can barely stop laughing long enough to type. So anyway, Ellie the mammoth along with her twin brothers that really are opossums, join Manny and head to safety. The story goes from here and from time to time I enjoyed myself but not enough to raise the score above 3 stars it�s getting. It could have been a 4 star movie if they�d focused more on the squirrel and less on the Ray Romano� I just don�t think the guys funny! I still wonder how he got a job in acting in the first place. Another mystery for another day but I digress.

The movie has a few decent jokes that kids won’t get right away so it works for adults too � in very small doses. The story is not as good as the original and had it not been for the parts with scrat the squirrel, I’d probably still be sleeping. Little kids that just loved it surrounded me and if you are a parent and want to see your kids smile and laugh, this movie works. If you are not a parent and you want to smile and laugh, just watch the trailers and shorts available on the net involving Scrat and save the 8 bucks.

Posted by J.C. Edwards | Filed Under 3 Stars, Comedy, Denis Leary, Jay Leno, John Leguizamo, PG, Queen Latifah, Ray Romano, Theatrical