Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs Review

Posted by Joseph Lee on 07.04.2009

Can the Ice Age recover from The Meltdown, or is this a Dawn not worth watching?



Starring:

*Ray Romano as Manny
*Queen Latifah as Elle
*Denis Leary as Diego
*John Leguizamo as Sid
*Seann William Scott as Crash
*Josh Peck as Eddie
*Simon Pegg as Buck
*Chris Wedge as Scrat
*Karen Disher as Scratte

Story: After the events of Ice Age: The Meltdown, everyone has different lives. Manny and Elle are about to be parents. Diego is feeling his old age and wants to go back out on his own for adventure. Sid feels left out. But this all changes when they discover an underground world where dinosaurs are still alive. Sid is taken by a T-Rex, and the rest go underground to find him, with the help of a weasel named Buck.

Trivia: The film was released in RealD where available. The release garned some controversy when Fox announced that it would no longer pay to supply 3D glasses to theaters , which led a threat from a number of exhibitors to only show the film in standard 2D projection.

I'm a fan of the Ice Age films. The first one is an underrated classic, lost in the shuffle of the films by Pixar and Dreamworks. Ice Age: The Meltdown was enjoyable, but nowhere near as good as the original. Now the series sees it's third entry with Manny, Sid and Diego, but what else is there to do when the Ice Age is close to ending? Bring back the dinosaurs, of course! That's exactly what happens here, as Sid discovers an underground jungle housing many dinosaurs thought to be extinct. He tries to raise some baby T-rexes on his own, but the mother comes looking for them and that's how our story takes off.

After being disappointed with The Meltdown, I was pleasantly surprised to see how enjoyable this entry was. While in the previous film I had no interest in the main characters (I only cared for Scrat's misadventures), this time I felt more involved with them. Sid, in particular, gets his chance to shine and John Leguizamo is up to the challenge, making the role a lot funnier than it has been in the past. Sid's a screw-up, but he manages to have some growth as he learns to take care of something other than himself. Even if he has no idea how to raise a dinosaur, he tries his best and the audience loves him for it.

The voice acting is hit or miss for most of the characters (Latifah, Romano and even Denis Leary all seem to be bored with the material), but luckily we have a new character to liven everything up in Buck, as played by Simon Pegg. He's no doubt the highlight of the film, delivering funny line after funny line. Buck is a survivalist weasel, living with the dinosaurs only on his wits. As it turns out, this has made him a little crazy. Okay, a lot crazy, as he talks to his foot at one point. But Buck's scenes are where the comedy shines and he makes the movie better with his presence.

Another aspect I enjoyed is the characters of Crash and Eddie (played by Seann William Scott and Josh Peck). It's funny because I found them to be annoying in The Meltdown, but here they are less "in your face" and more of in the background. Their blind devotion to Buck is also really funny, as they will do practically anything he says. You'll hear the animation get praised in this, and it should be. The action sequences are great and the animation flows nicely. It feels like a cartoon, which is good. In an era where Pixar turns animation into art (not that there's anything wrong with that), it's nice to see that some films still try to be cartoons for kids.

There are some problems, however. First of all, there is no reason to care about the Woolly Mammoths anymore. Elle already brought the character of Manny down as an unnecessary love interest, but now we have a baby on top of it. This results in some unfunny moments of Manny panicking because he's going to be a father, something we've seen a million times in other, better movies. Elle was already unneeded, but here she just feels like dead weight to move the mammoths' story along. Manny is a character that was the weakest of the three in the original, and once again the writers seem to want to focus on him. Diego's story was much more interesting, in my opinion, but we never really dive into it as much as we should have. Instead, this movie feels like his character could have left in the beginning and no one would miss him.

Secondly, for a movie that runs at a brisk 85 minutes, there still feels like there are some filler moments. For a kids' movie that relies on it's comedy and action sequences, there are still some dull moments where there is just talking (or Manny panicking about being a father). Even the Scrat moments, the most enjoyable scenes in the previous two films, aren't as good as they should be. Something feels off about this entry. For a movie that's been in development since 2006, more work should have been put into the story and comedy in addition to the animation.

Problems aside, I still enjoyed Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. Sid the Sloth and Buck the Weasel are two great characters who carry the film. The animation is superb and children should love it, even if not every adult will. There are certainly worse movies to take kids to this summer both in terms of quality and appropriateness. Ice Age is perfect for them.

The 411: Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs makes up for the previous sequel with a fun, if tiresome entry. The mammoths are tired characters and the Scrat sequences aren't as funny as we're used to them being. However, John Leguizamo as Sid and Simon Pegg as Buck completely save it with great comedic voice acting, meaning I can't completely dismiss this. Kids should enjoy it, but older audiences may find themselves bored, even with the shorter length.

Final Score:  6.5   [ Average ]