A Era do Gelo

With a relatively small budget for an animated film of only $60 million the people at Fox Animation and Blue Sky Studios have done an incredible job.

They have combined state-of-the-art digital animation, the perfectly cast voice talents of Ray Romano, John Leguizamo and Dennis Leary (among many others) to create a highly entertaining, family film with a strong message about cooperation, friendship and caring for your fellow herd members. And how sometimes it takes many different creatures to make up a herd.

While watching this film I got a strong political message about getting along with the people that share your space -- maybe it should be required viewing for all world leaders!

David Newman -- yet another member of the Newman family of Hollywood composers -- provides a superb score that is not intrusive yet serves to move the action along and, at times, is positively toe tapping.

The overall look of the film is incredible; an intensely coloured, strangely believable fantasyland of snow, geysers, mud, rocks and ice. The individual characters were delightfully believable too, with the facial expressions of Ray Romano's ‘Manfred' being a particular treat.

The entire sequence with the DoDos will leave no doubt as to where the expression `Dumb as a DoDo comes from.'

This is a good family film that keeps the things that could alarm or frighten children pretty much sanitized -- but real nonetheless.

It would be a great movie to see in the theater and to buy for home.

`Ice Age' emerges as one of the better animated films of recent years, cleverly designed and even more cleverly written. Scenarists Michael Berg, Michael J. Wilson and Peter Ackerman have devised a story set 20,000 years ago about an unlikely trio of companions who find themselves making a long trek through a harsh environment in an effort, ostensibly, to return a baby human to the tribe from which he has become separated. The triumvirate is made up of a deadpan, cynical mammoth, a wisecracking, over-the-top sloth (whose mile-a-minute mouth more than makes up for his legendary slowness) and a malevolent saber-tooth tiger, who learns a thing or two about friendship and teamwork before the adventure is over.

`Ice Age' is at its most amusing in those scenes in which the characters make prescient jokes about their own place in the evolutionary scheme of things. One particularly clever scene involves the three travelers discovering what looks like an underground museum of natural history encased in ice, replete with ancient creatures caught in naturally occurring, chain-of-life exhibits. Like most animated films set in the past, `Ice Age' derives much of its humor through the use of anachronism. We chuckle to hear these creatures applying modern, scientific knowledge to the pre-scientific era in which they are living.

The animators and designers have done a beautiful job in achieving just the right look for this tale. The backgrounds have a colorful, clean, streamlined look to them, and the animals themselves, in their appearance and design, provide a witty commentary on evolutionary history. Ray Romano, John Leguizamo and Denis Leary do superb voiceover work, each achieving just the right tone for the character he has been assigned to play. One could wish, perhaps, for a bit less sentimentality at the end, but that is a minor quibble in a film that works so well for both children and adults. The kids will revel in the cuteness of the animals and the clever action sequences, while adults will savor the sly knowingness of the evolutionary and historical in-jokes. Not bad in an era when most films can't find a way to please even ONE audience demographic.

In what amounts to a throw-back to the early, manually-animated cartoons, "Ice Age" chooses a very simple story around which is wrapped clever and exciting animation. Highly intelligent sabre-tooth tigers want to get revenge for the killing of one of their pack, so plot to steal the baby son of the human tribe leader. A goofy sloth (Lugiezamo) and a kind wooly mammoth (Ray Romano) rescue the child and attempt to find his parents, joined by a sly tiger (Denis Leary) who at first is planning to lead all of them into a corner so his tiger friends can help get the child back and eat the mammoth. But a series of events, and the tiger's being saved by the mammoth, causes all of them to "bond".

The DVD is flawless. The Dolby surround sound is remarkably good, truly surrounding you with sound. The direct digital to DVD video transfer is as good, colorful, and sharp as the other recent ones like "Toy Story 2", "Shrek", and "Monsters Inc." There is a whole second disk of "extras" which take you through the whole animated film-making process. Also a short animated film "Bunny" which won an oscar in 1998. Plus another "short" which shows the little squirrel, 20,000 years later, in an ice block drifting onto a deserted island, and his pounding of a coconut into the ground triggering the continental drift which resulted in the present day continents! Very inventive and funny.

Watching "Ice Age", my wife and I noticed that much of the action and pratfalls reminded us of the old "Roadrunner" cartoons. In the DVD extras the director mentions that those old cartoons of Chuck Jones were the insriration of many of the scenes. Yes, a throw-back to the old manually-animated cartoons, and a worthy tribute.

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 ****

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