La nuova avventura di Scrat

He had enough acorns to last decades, but he had to force one more into his stash. This Ice Age star, saber toothed squirrel, goes overboard and pays the price. The animation is superb and the action sequences wonderful. The main character has so many expressions that are priceless. It's a really fun little cartoon.

This also is known as "Scrat's Missing Adventure." Scrat's obsession with his having his nuts organized just right turns out to be his undoing in this crazy animated short, included in the "Ice Age DVD."

This little squirrel became a big hit in the feature film and was awarded with a much bigger role in the sequel. He's now part of the Ice Age gang, if you will. This bonus short shows that he had built up quite a collection of acorns in a hollow tree. But, for some strange reason - call it "perfectionism," that last acorn won't stay put where it is supposed to be. It keeps popping out. Instead of just leaving it as it is, which wouldn't have changed anything, Scrat goes out of his way to make it all look good.....and disaster is the result.

What happens when his little nest of acorns is disrupted is too wild to describe here. It has to be seen to be believed. Of course, it's outrageous but it's a cartoon, and it is fun to watch.

P.S. I viewed it a second time after writing the above review....and enjoyed it even more. This time I really appreciated all the funny noises Chris Wedge made, as Scat the squirrel.

Just like MONSTERS, INC. which ICE AGE was released almost back-to-back with, this film just *has* to have a nice, little short film to accompany it's trip to VHS and DVD.

MONSTERS, INC. included two short films. Not one, but two. The okay, MIKE'S NEW CAR and the 2001 Academy Award winning feature FOR THE BIRDS (which I do not see how it is possible). ICE AGE also just *has* to include a tiny little short film. This one is called GONE NUTTY. It is also titled "Scrat's Missing Adventure" on the box cover, but either way...

Like the terribly unfunny FOR THE BIRDS, GONE NUTTY is somewhat mean-spirited and not very nice. Scrat sure does take an ass-whooping here in the short time this film runs (which is around 4 minutes, so its not like this film is wasting much time)...it is a nice appetizer to warm you up before you watch, ICE AGE, but it is just not great.

GONE NUTTY: 3/5.

Gone Nutty, short film that is included as an extra on the DVD of Ice Age (and that was nominated for the Oscar), short film featuring the, sometimes, hilarious squirrel Scrat. Certainly it is just the story of its life: is Scrat with lots of acorns but with a problem, eventually is Scrat with only one acorn yet finally with only a sort of beret, no acorn. I wouldn't say this is absolutely hilarious, for me this isn't very special (just like Ice Age itself) but still it's good stuff, with the hilarious stuff of the continental drift theory! Certainly it's far from being as good as any of the best Pixar shorts but surely it's better than a short like Pixar's Boundin'.

Like many of it's animated colleagues, Ice Age starts off with a wonderful short film, this time one which was even better known than the rest of the film before it was released. You may remember seeing previews for Ice Age that were made up entirely of footage from Scrat's Missing Adventure, which is probably the most entertaining and amusing short animated film I've ever seen. There is something to be said when a movie like Drop Zone or even a James Bond film like Moonraker can so badly screw up the concept of skydiving, and then a short children's film like this makes the effort to portray it so accurately (with the obvious exception of all that nut gathering business, of course).

I have heard that Scrat was originally meant to play a much larger role in the film, which was to be centered around him as the main character, but other characters were brought in under the demand for a more large scale motion picture. Thankfully, Scrat makes several much-welcome appearances throughout the film, but this opening sequence still stands as probably the best four minutes of the entire film.