Ice Age: The Meltdown

At first, "Ice Age: The Meltdown" looks like the inevitable sequel to the famous 20th Century Fox animated blockbuster, trying to cash in the success of the previous movie. Well, despite being exactly that, this new adventure of the prehistoric mammals manages to stay on its own legs and delivers nothing but great fun becoming a worthy sequel. That alone is an achievement in its own right.

After some years living in peace in a new pack, our old friends Sid the sloth (John Leguizamo), Manny the Mammoth (Ray Romano) and Diego the Sabertooth tiger (Dennis Leary) discover that the ice is melting and a flood will cover the valley they now call home. Soon they organize a migration, but the trip won't be easy, specially for Manny, who begins to believe that he is the last Mammoth on earth.

"The Meltdown" continues with the style of its predecessor both in humor and animation, so those who fell in love with the original will love the sequel too. The difference however, is in the fact that now Manny is our main character. We get to know more about this character apparently anti-social and cynic, but who in the inside feels very lonely after the loss of his family. Sid and Diego make good sidekicks in this adventure and while their roles in the film are somewhat diminished, they still are very well-developed characters. Scrat, the nut-obsessed squirrel is back too in his constant quest for his lost nut, giving slapstick humor of the finest type in every scene he is in.

It is always hard for sequels to live up to the expectations, specially in family-oriented animation films, but director Carlos Saldanha and his team manage to make a funny movie that never gets boring or tiresome (something vital as it is a movie mainly oriented for kids).

While probably the story is not exactly original or complicated, writers Peter Gaulke and Gerry Swallow make up for it with good character development and funny one-liners that fit the movie tone very good. Two new characters, the young possums Crash (Sean William Scott) and Eddie (Josh Peck) are a welcomed addition to the family, as well as Ellie (Queen Latifah), the lost mammoth.

Ellie, Manny and their relationship is a very important subplot in the movie, and one that was perfectly handled by the director and his crew. While Diego's subplot was also interesting and served as basis for very good jokes, it didn't had enough screen-time; a shame in my opinion, but overall the movie was very good.

To summarize, fans of the first "Ice Age" won't be disappointed by "The Meltdown", and sure the movie will give laughs to both kids and their parents. While still not as good as the first one, this sequel breaks the "sequel's curse" and is an entertaining film on its own right. 7/10

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.

When the valley where they live is threatened by the melt of the surrounding ice, the mammoth Manny, the sloth Sid and the saber-toothed tiger Diego advise the other animals to look for shelter outside the place. While escaping, the trio meets Ellie, a female mammoth that believes she is an opossum like her two mischievous brothers. Meanwhile, the squirrel Scrat tries to retrieve his walnut in the most unusual situations.

"Ice Age: The Meltdown" is a funny sequel of "Ice Age", with many hilarious situations. Again, the squirrel Scrat "steals" most of the scenes, recalling the MGM animated theatrical shorts cartoons of "Tom & Jerry" that I used to see in the matinées when I was a kid. The situation of Ellie, who is convinced that is an opossum, also made me laugh a lot. The shameful and expensive DVD released in Brazil by Fox do Brasil distributor does not have the original audio in English, only in Portuguese and Spanish; further, does not have any Extra. Shame on you Fox do Brasil! My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Era do Gelo 2" ("The Ice Age 2")

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.

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).