L'Âge de glace 2

In 'Ice Age: The Meltdown' the gang is back. Manny (Ray Romano), Sid (John Leguizamo), and Diego (Denis Leary) find themselves in a post-ice age catastrophe. The ice is melting and they have to move the herd out of the valley before it becomes a lake. Fortunately, they do not have to worry about any carnivorous dinosaurs. They are all extinct, or are they? This was a cute film worthy of the original. The kids will really enjoy it. I thought the best part was that Scrat, the acorn-loving rodent, has a larger role to play in this movie. Queen Latifah is also really good as Ellie, the mammoth that thinks she is a possum.

I did think the original 'Ice Age' was a better movie, but this one is pretty good.

Ice Age is one of the best animations ever made so I was excited about the return of Scrat & co. While the new adventure doesn't have the same emotional impact as the first (less tear-jerky, I mean), it makes up for it with comedy. Scrat's attempts to hang on to his acorn are longer & even more hilarious. The Possums & their big "sister" are excellent new characters, providing their own share of the laughs. The romance plot is less dramatic than the baby's tale, sometimes slowing the action. However it's sweet & provides some fun dialogue. Sid is brilliant, his mini adventure a definite highlight. Diego's role is reduced, but still vital. He's especially funny with Sid. If you enjoy the Ice Age films, I also recommend The Land Before Time adventures. They share the same formula & the same heart. 8/10

Highly enjoyable film. Nary a dull moment as Diego, Sid and Manny find their way through the meltdown. The peril found in the first Ice Age movie was not duplicated here. The danger wasn't as imminent due to the fact that the meltdown is partly a blessing, while the ice age itself was all bad. A subtle flaw but not something the creators could avoid unless they wanted to make a "Mid-Ice Age" movie. How the tribe survived multiple thousands of years is not addressed, but who cares? Maybe they were actually living on the ecuator in the first movie and the ice caps just reached them in the final years of the ice age. A decade later, the climate warms up and causes the mixed emotions found in Ice Age II. The central theme of friendship in spite of differences and the humor found in trying situations plays well. Overcominging fears in the face of danger is a prominent theme. Jokes fly fast and furious for all ages. And the proto-squirrel steals our hearts with his absolute devotion to caching acorns. A strong production for Twentieth Century Fox.

The children liked it but they weren't riveted. That's the short of it. It wasn't a shocking disaster, but it was just a bit muddled. A little scattered. Fragmented. It failed to engage me.

But let's be positive. The writers wisely decided to vastly expand the role of Scrat the Squirrel in this version. Periodically we get to take a break from watching the mammoth, sloth, tiger, possums, and other mammoth walk very slowly along toward the vague "other end" of a vague "valley" to avoid a flood that is being caused by global warming. We get to step back from the grindingly uninspired mammoth love story and the other many subplots that go with the many characters. We get to watch a squirrel chase an acorn. And those sequences present some of the funniest bits in the film.

The rest of it is just kind of there. One problem is that there's really no reason for a sloth, a tiger, and a mammoth to be casting their lots together, except that they did in the first movie. That movie, I felt, had a storyline that involved actual characterization, growth, change, a real tension, etc. When the tiger almost fell off the cliff in Ice Age #1, I gasped. This time, I fidgeted. It just didn't seem real. And that's what I want from an animated movie about talking prehistoric animals -- REALNESS. No, but seriously, without some degree of actual jeopardy, of actual question of what will happen from scene to scene, without someone to root for and embrace -- it's just pointless.

The only character I was getting that for was the saber tooth squirrel. They could have saved a lot of money in celebrity voices.

Everyone had a subplot because they had to have something to do, so that was tidily arranged for them. But nobody's subplot had anything to do with the others'. And the global storyline about the flood was just a reason to walk... slowly. Slowly walk. And pester each other half-heartedly about how they were all going to die. Or not.

Like I said, the children didn't complain. I did laugh, many times, at the places I was supposed to. But it wasn't great.

Manny the woolly mammoth (voiced by Ray Romano), Sid the sloth (John Leguizamo), and Diego (Dennis Leary) the saber-toothed tiger embark on yet another journey in "Ice Age: Meltdown, "the sequel from the 2002 blockbuster by Blue Sky Studios and released by 20th Century Fox. This time, ice is melting and a great flood is threatening to drown all animals in the valley in three days, much to the delight of vultures who are keen on having a buffet with the bodies of those who will be unfortunate enough not to outlive it. The only way to survive is to get to an "ark" at the other end of the valley. Along the way, they meet Ellie (Queen Latifah), perhaps the only other mammoth left aside from Manny, but unfortunately, thinks of herself as a possum, with her "brothers" Crash and Eddie (Sean William Scott and Josh Peck... who's who, I don't know because I never got to track their names).

"Ice Age: Meltdown" is, first and foremost, the inevitable sequel. And while it is still an enjoyable movie, it's very clearly more, or less (depending on how you would look at it), of the same. It still follows up from the first one, but all in all it feels that there wasn't enough material to hold a full-length movie that the character of Scrat has been given more screen time even if what he does trying to get his acorn doesn't advance the plot at all, albeit helping the film reach barely an hour and a half. While this movie still does manage to amuse from time to time, on the whole the plot feels more obligatory and jokes seem to be a little bit more blunt.

That's not to say "Ice Age: Meltdown" is a total waste because it does still have a few aces up its sleeve. Latifah brings a brilliant performance on her character Ellie, as are Scott and Peck on Ellie's two "brothers." And while much of the first two parts of the film lags, it builds up during the climax and from there never lets go. The animation looks quite excellent as well.

It still has enough wit and laughs to support it most of the time but it's really much more of a standard film than the first one, and the animation genre in general doesn't reach new levels with this. Still, it's one of the better sequels there is, and it's a cool way to start the summer (in this side of the world, that is).