L'Âge de glace

I saw the movie with two grown children. Although it was not as clever as Shrek, I thought it was rather good. In a movie theatre surrounded by children who were on spring break, there was not a sound so I know the children all liked it. There parents also seemed engaged. The death and apparent death of characters brought about the appropriate gasps and comments. Hopefully people realize this movie was made for kids. As such, it was successful although I liked it too. Personally I liked the Scrat!!

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 ****

Excellent computer-generated animated feature that makes a case for one of the finest films of 2002. It is the frozen era and prehistoric animals try to find their way to land that is warmer and drier. An early group of human hunters become the hunted themselves as a group of sabertooth tigers begin to plot revenge. As an attack occurs, a small infant child is taken out of harm's way. Enter a kind wooly mammoth (voiced by the priceless Ray Romano) and a silly sloth (voiced by John Leguizamo) who find the young child and decide to return it to the humans. It appears that a sabertooth tiger (Denis Leary) is helping the duo, but his motives are devious as he is trying to lead them all into a trap of other sabertooth tigers. The film is another great animated piece of film-making that has important messages for the youngsters and is also highly entertaining for all audiences. 5 stars out of 5.

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.

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