Scrat is only a little bit obsessed.
(2012) Animated Feature (20th Century Fox) Starring the voices of Ray Romano, Queen Latifah, Denis Leary, John Leguizamo, Peter Dinklage, Seann William Scott, Wanda Sykes, Aziz Ansari, Jennifer Lopez, Drake, Keke Palmer, Heather Morris, Joy Behar, Nicki Minaj, Josh Gad, Alan Tudyk, Nick Frost, JB Smoove, Chris Wedge. Directed by Steve Martino and Michael Thumeier
There isn’t much we wouldn’t do for our families. We’d put our lives on the line to defend them. We’d do things that we don’t like doing to make things work. We’d go as far as we had to just to get together with them. Even though we fight like cats and dogs sometimes, when it comes down to it, our families are everything.
Manny the Mastodon (Romano) thinks so too. After everything he’s been through, his wife Ellie (Latifah) is the apple of his eye. His daughter Peaches (Palmer) is now a teenager (we saw her getting born in the last Ice Age movie) and like most teenagers, she’s terribly concerned with hanging out with the right crowd. She has her eye on Ethan (Drake), the dreamboat who has his own little entourage, although her BFF Louis (Gad), a kind of mole, is far nicer and cares about her as a mastodon…er, person.
Scrat (Wedge) the obsessive squirrel has tried to plant his acorn right in the center of things. Unfortunately, his determination has led to the cataclysmic break-up of the super-continent into the seven continents we know today. That action has inadvertently separated Manny from his family although fortunately Diego (Leary) the saber-toothed tiger is with him as is Sid the Sloth (Leguizamo) and his feisty but not altogether there Granny (Sykes).
They are floating about the sea on an ice floe when they run into Captain Gutt (Dinklage), an orangutan pirate who is also the self-styled ruler of the sea. His right hand woman is Shira (Lopez) who may just be a more ruthless cat than Diego, although you know the two are going to fall for each other. You know it.
Meanwhile, back at home the continental upheaval is taking its toll as Ellie is trying to lead the others to safety while Peaches alternately worries for her dad (who she had words with just before things went south) and still trying to fit in with the cool clique, while Louis frets. Will Manny ever see his family again?
The first Ice Age movies were pretty good and I enjoyed the camaraderie between the main trio of Manny, Diego and Sid. With each passing film more characters have been added into the mix and the films have been getting on the bloated side. As with the third film in the series, there seems to be less fun in the mix. You get the sense that this is just a paycheck for everyone involved, from the studio head on down to the animators and the voice talent. Sykes dos make a welcome addition, although her character is an insulting steroetype for the elderly which is disheartening. Still, she has some of the funniest moments in the film.
One thing it does have going for it is the 3D. I think it’s fair to say that the entire film revolves around 3 so that if you see it in 2D, you miss quite a bit. I don’t often recommend the upcharge but it is worth it here. However, don’t expect much logic or sense. As Sid says to Granny, “We fought dinosaurs. It didn’t make sense, but it sure was exciting.” Although I’d have to question the exciting part. Still, this is a feature length cartoon, not a lesson in history, zoology or geology.
As always, my favorite segments are the ones involving Scrat the Squirrel. This time, an awful lot of them already have appeared in the short films that Scrat has starred in which is a further sign that this franchise is running out of gas. I think it’s fair to say that I got a sense that I’ve seen it all before throughout the film, but in the case of Scrat I literally have.
There’s enough here to keep the small kids happy (and there were plenty of them even at the later showing that I attended which in itself is pretty sad – parents who keep their kids up to see a movie past their bedtime should have their heads examined) but the parents who go with them are going to be counting the minutes until the movie is over – and at a running time of well over an hour and a half, that’s a lot of minutes.
REASONS TO GO: The Scrat sequences are always entertaining. Smaller children will love it (although kids 3rd grade and older might turn their noses up at it as being for little kids).
REASONS TO STAY: Really, there isn’t much here that hasn’t been done before.
FAMILY VALUES: Some of the humor is a little bit rude (although not much) – and some of the cartoon violence might upset the very little.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Captain Gutt was supposed to have been voiced by Jeremy Renner, but his busy schedule precluded it so Peter Dinklage was cast instead.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 7/21/12: Rotten Tomatoes: 39% positive reviews. Metacritic: 48/100. The reviews are pretty negative.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Ice Age: The Meltdown
SCRAT LOVERS: While much of the footage with Scrat was shown initially in the short Scrat’s Continental Crack-Up that accompanied Rio, there are plenty of new scenes that highlight the obsessive squirrel.
FINAL RATING: 5/10
NEXT: The Oxford Murders
SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME
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