Ice Age

I'd have to say this is one of the best animated films I've ever seen. I liked it the first time but really appreciated it on the second viewing, just a few weeks ago. I can see why sequel is doing such great business at the box office. Apparently, a lot of people liked this movie.

A gorgeous color palette (man, this looks good) and a lot of good adult (but clean) humor make this a big winner. The opening 3-4-minute scene with "Scat," is excellent as are subsequent interludes with him. "Sid" the sloth (voiced by John Leguizano), however, provides the main humor in the movie. He usually has something funny to say throughout the movie.

Ray Romano is the voice of the mammoth, the big character of the film, literally, while Denis Leary is the ferocious bad-guy-turned-good sabertooth tiger

This isn't just humor and pretty colors but a nice, sentimental story of how a little baby softens up a couple of tough characters. This isn't interrupted with a lot of songs, either: one only brief one and there is nothing offensive, language-wise.

If more animated movies were this good, I'd own more.

This was great. I liked it better than I did Shrek, by far. 'Manfred' and the Squirrel really take the cake here-excellant voice work, nice animation of the character faces, Denis Leary was a hoot too....with just the right amount of an edge, as is usual for him.

Some of the vignettes-the Dodos, (You've got three melons), etc are right up there with anything Pixar has done. I also thought that the little montage of Mannfred's parent's(cave drawings come to life) were done well too.

As for the messages-'Non-trad families are okay too-', people can work together, etc.-well, all are pretty obvious and all that-but it's not hammered home ala Disney, and you also don't have anyone breaking out into song, either.

See it for the Mammoth and the squirrel, though the Sloth is fun too. Cute kid baby too, not far removed from 'Boo' in Monsters Inc.

*** outta ****

Excellent computer-generated animated feature that makes a case for one of the finest films of 2002. It is the frozen era and prehistoric animals try to find their way to land that is warmer and drier. An early group of human hunters become the hunted themselves as a group of sabertooth tigers begin to plot revenge. As an attack occurs, a small infant child is taken out of harm's way. Enter a kind wooly mammoth (voiced by the priceless Ray Romano) and a silly sloth (voiced by John Leguizamo) who find the young child and decide to return it to the humans. It appears that a sabertooth tiger (Denis Leary) is helping the duo, but his motives are devious as he is trying to lead them all into a trap of other sabertooth tigers. The film is another great animated piece of film-making that has important messages for the youngsters and is also highly entertaining for all audiences. 5 stars out of 5.

Just saw ICE AGE, a very funny and especially nice looking film. The story is simple but effective, the characters lovable and nicely fleshed out but what really shines is the digital set design.

More inspired by traditional animated movies than reality, the designs give you a really, really nice looking world in a astounding use of colour. Sometimes the touches of reality shine through (especially the water was impressive), but nonetheless, it's a fantasy-world based on reality. Including loads of vast landscapes especially helps to minimise the costs of rendering.

Pixar films shine with technical brilliance, this one shines with effective uses of technical know-how.

Enough technical babble, the film's entertaining, family-friendly and sometimes just hilariously funny.

I think too many people compare this to Monsters' Inc and Shrek in terms of animation quality. I also think that this film would have been a lot more successful, had it not been released too soon to Monsters' Inc. I thought it was a well-written film and in some case sweet too. The animation is spot on, and when I saw it at the cinema, the whole room were in hysterics in the first five minutes, because of Scrat, who was one of the funnier characters. The voice work is highly commendable, especially Ray Romano as Manny and Denis Leary as Diego. John Leguizamo has his moments as Sid. The script was well written, very funny, but sometimes especially towards the end, when the humour could have been more focused. I actually liked the sentimentality brought into the story. The baby, is one of those characters you love or hate, I warmed to him, but i never empathised with him. Although, I was really moved by the bit where Manny is seen staring at the drawing with the hunters killing mammoths. Anyway, the music score was perfect. All in all, a funny and sometimes touching picture, that had a tendency to get a bit slow, but overall this is misjudged by people. 8/10 Bethany Cox