Ice Age: The Meltdown - Austin American-Statesman movie review

Humor, cool animation make new 'Ice Age' a winner

By DALE ROE
Austin American-Statesman

"Ice Age: The Meltdown" begins with a joyous scene of tiny critters frolicking in a sort of prehistoric water park; melting ice floes become massive waterslides leading into glistening blue pools. The animation is stunning as the characters slip, slide and fly through the air. It's like one of those amazing continuous shots in a live-action film that stretches for several minutes leaving you wondering how it was done. It's a huge accomplishment that a frame-by-frame-rendered animated feature — in which the viewer knows that any sequence can be tweaked and modified endlessly — can elicit the same sense of awe.

Twentieth Century Fox

'Ice Age: The Meltdown'

3 out of 5 stars

Director: Carlos Saldanha
Starring: Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, Queen Latifah, Josh Peck, Jay Leno
Run time: 90 minutes
Release date: March 31, 2006
Rating: PG for some mild language and innuendo.
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Spirited voice-overs
Palm Beach Post "Flick Chick" Leslie Streeter remembers five animated characters whose voices make them adorable.

On the web
Official movie site
View the trailer
Trailers require Quicktime

The joy is tempered, however, when returning characters Sid the sloth (John Leguizamo), Manny the woolly mammoth (Ray Romano) and saber-toothed tiger Diego (Denis Leary) realize that all of the melting means the Ice Age is ending. They are informed by an eager vulture that the valley they live in is "a big bowl" that is going to be flooded with water.

I wonder what the filmmakers thought as they watched New Orleans ravaged by Hurricane Katrina; surely the film was finished by then, so you can't fault them for the unfortunate coincidence. Still, if you make the connection it becomes a major distraction and resonates in a particularly creepy way.

At least the filmmakers handled the impending doom deftly. When the dam finally bursts, unleashing the floodwaters, it's on the heels of a slapstick scene involving saber-toothed squirrel Scrat (the best part of the inferior original film) and his quest for an acorn. The folks at Twentieth Century Fox have clearly taken a cue from Disney, whose animators are geniuses at knowing when to throw in a song to keep kids from getting bored. Scrat serves the same function here — they trot him out whenever the film gets too slow or threatens to become too serious.

Speaking of songs, there's a doozy here, and it's another Disney throwback: A flock of vultures perform a Busby Berkeley-esque production number, singing "food, glorious food" as they circle the escaping herds. It's a clear tribute to (and one-up on) the vultures' barber-shop quartet number in "The Jungle Book."

"Ice Age: The Meltdown" is not perfect ... for starters, Leary's Diego has been completely de-fanged, turned from a menacing hero to a water-fearing coward. The resolution of the flood is too handy (if only FEMA had been this lucky). And how have these characters survived from the beginning of the Ice Age to the end of it in the span of two films?

But the message of facing one's fears, the top-notch voice work and the change of scenery from the original's endless white landscapes to "Meltdown's" bright greens and dusty browns are welcome. And a host of new characters including a pair of prankster possums and Queen Latifah's Ellie, a woolly mammoth who thinks she's their sister, are charming and delightful.

They make "Ice Age: The Meltdown" a strong three-star movie.

Heckuva job, Foxy.