steve-bailey-1

James Bond, Harry Potter, and Star Wars notwithstanding, there are not too many movie franchises that aren't gasping for breath by the third entry. The latest evidence is the animated comedy "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs."

Like the "Shrek" movies, the "Ice Age" stories began modestly but have now caved under the weight of too many characters. No. 3 brings back the wooly mammoth Manny (voiced by Ray Romano); his significant other Ellie (Queen Latifah); Diego (Denis Leary), the macho tiger; the hapless sloth Sid (John Leguizamo); and the wordless squirrel Scrat (Chris Wedge).

The first few scenes are ominously discouraging. Ellie's is shown to be "with child," and Diego is starting to feel his age. So we get a lot of touchy-feely dialogue about mortality and sharing your emotions – not the kind of talk you're eager to receive from a couple of wooly mammoths.

These characters have worn their more endearing traits down to a nub. Sid was always meant to irritate his on-screen friends, but now he gets under our skin as well. Ray Romano, in what was once his only credible movie role, makes Manny as grating as his "Everybody Loves Raymond" persona was. And if you've seen Denis Leary on his TV series "Rescue Me," you know that the last emotion he should be asked to display is sensitivity.

As if just giving enough screen time to each returnee wasn't enough to intimidate the movie makers, they added an underground world of dinosaurs, so the whole gang can get chased around and scream as if they're in Jurassic Park.

Then they get a travel guide, in the form of a macho weasel named Buck (Simon Pegg), so that the movie can score a few "Apocalypse Now" jokes.

Who's supposed to care about any of this guff? Cartoony as they were, the first two movies made you feel as though something was as stake for these creatures. Now they've turned into stand-up comics, delivering little zingers before they lumber off-screen. The movie alternates between these puny jokes and drawn-out scenes of frantic action, neither of which adequately carry the story or its many subplots.

Finally, it must be noted that the movie is in 3D, with the usual cheesy glasses provided at each screening. If you're a fan of this format, ignore my carping. But I share critic Roger Ebert's view that if animation is done plausibly enough, a viewer shouldn't require special glasses to be dazzled by it. Here, 3D is just another prominent distraction.

UP, Pixar's latest animated feature, is just delightful. But how do you go about extolling the movie's virtues without giving away its surprises? Like the kid at the beginning of the movie, you don't try to conquer the immovable force; you work around it.

The one clue I can give away – because it's the movie's heavily hyped premise – is that Carl Fredrickson, a gruffy old widower (voiced with gruffy old charm by Ed Asner), miraculously inflates enough balloons to use his house as an aircraft. Soon, he finds himself reluctantly sharing his ride with a short-attention-spanned kid named Russell.

I'll also mention a couple of other items that can gauge your potential interest in the movie. One is a gag that is a take-off on a famous painting – perhaps too inside of an inside joke, but typical of Pixar's cheery attempts to appeal to viewers of all ages.

Also, part of the plot involves Carl's long-held wish to meet a Lindbergh-type adventurer named Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer!). This is another in-joke that's even vaguer than the first one. Cartoon historians know that Walt Disney started in the cartoon biz by creating Oswald the Rabbit for producer Charles Mintz, who then greedily stole the rights to Disney's creation. This gives you a pretty good idea where the ostensible hero Muntz stands in the scheme of things.

Beyond that, I can only offer you some enticing clues about the characters. There's a dog who's the leader of his pack and in menacing beyond measure, until he opens his mouth and gets one of the movie's biggest laughs. There's a huge, awkward bird that is a big laugh-getter at first. Then she becomes a real enough character that – at least in the audience I was in – when she's injured, she elicits screams of fright worthy of Bambi's late mother.

There's surprising, heartfelt emotion, vivid imagery (you can almost touch the landscapes and skies), and a music score by Michael Giacchino that's practically a character in the movie – particularly in a thoughtful montage that takes Carl from childhood to widowhood.

There aren't many (or at least not enough) live-action movies that are engrossing as this cartoon. Pixar Studios has gotten to be one of those movie icons that shouldn't even have to deliver a premise to get funded anymore. The moneymen should just shut up, hand over the money, and trust they'll get a product that will appeal to everyone.

UP is only the second Pixar feature to get a PG rating, only for mildly intense imagery and action – nothing off-color in the least. Again, if you can handle "Bambi," this film should be a breeze.