I liked the original film in the Ice Age series. It surprised me with its uproarious humor and its overall lack of smarminess. It dealt subtle jabs to both the folk running around spouting off doomsday warnings of global warming (though in Ice Age it was global cooling they were worried about) and those who didn’t believe anything was happening whatsoever. Sadly, Ice Age: The Meltdown never tries to dish it out to both sides of the issue and throws its hat in with the doomsday crowd.
Our odd trio of friends from the first film (Manny the mammoth, Sid the sloth and Diego the saber-tooth tiger) are still palling around together. After what’s got to be the shortest Ice Age in the history of the universe (what, maybe two years, three tops?) global warming threatens the valley they have come to know.
A subplot involves Manny worrying that he is the last of the mammoths. He discovers that this isn’t true when the trio comes across a female mammoth (voiced by Queen Latifah) who thinks she is a weasel or ferret, or whatever it is that adopted her. She is juvenile and ditzy and makes for an annoying addition to our merry band of travelers. This subplot resolves itself conveniently and predictably by the end of the last reel.
There’s plenty of stupid humor, mostly revolving around the size of the mammoths’ rear ends, and antics that just aren’t as funny this time around. The good news is that the group dynamic is still there, though it is disrupted quite a bit by the new characters, and much of the same bickering and humorous infighting still exists, but it isn’t enough and isn’t as fresh as in the first film. But our familiarity with history’s most demented herd is enough to keep you mildly entertained.
The message of global warming gets a bit heavy-handed by the end, but oddly enough, nature takes its course and things turn out okay in the end. This conveys some unique mixed messages in a film trumping the dangers of global warming, doesn’t it?
All in all, the film lacks focus, which leads to its own meltdown. Neither the A nor B plots are fleshed out enough to satisfy and the laughs just aren’t as heartfelt as they were in Ice Age. It all leads me to wonder if they even really needed to make a sequel
The easy answer is no. But in the age of box office driven franchises, 20th Century Fox decided to capitalize on a surprise hit by milking it for all its worth. And sure enough, Ice Age: The Meltdown made enough money to justify a third installment, due out in 2009.
When the best thing about your film is the short vignettes involving a character who doesn’t even speak (Scrat, the saber-tooth squirrel and his masochistic struggle to find and hang onto an acorn), you know you have a problem.
The novelty has worn off, the humor isn’t there and quality writing seems to be extinct. In short, The Meltdown is a letdown.
I liked the original film in the Ice Age series. It surprised me with its uproarious humor and its overall lack of smarminess. It dealt subtle jabs to both the folk running around spouting off doomsday warnings of global warming (though in Ice Age it was global cooling they were worried about) and those who didn’t believe anything was happening whatsoever. Sadly, Ice Age: The Meltdown never tries to dish it out to both sides of the issue and throws its hat in with the doomsday crowd.
No comments:
Post a Comment