"Ice Age: The Meltdown" Review

by Jeff McGinnis, Lead Usher

*** stars (out of four)
90 minutes, Now Showing

If the original “Ice Age” was a good animated film, then “Ice Age: The Meltdown” is a good sequel. If I were to offer a contrast, I’d note that the original “Toy Story” was a great animated film, and “Toy Story 2” was ALSO a great animated film. The difference is subtle, but it’s there. If you liked “Ice Age” (and I did), then you’ll probably enjoy this second go-around with the characters (as I did). If you didn’t see the original film, or didn’t like it, I can’t recommend it on its own merits.

For fans of the original, “Ice Age: The Meltdown” (which lost its “2” somewhere during the ad campaign) offers a nice revisit to the same core group of characters, and a few new ones, though by and large the new creations aren’t as much fun as the old ones. There are also once again frequent and hilarious interruptions by Scrat the squirrel, still on his never-ending quest for a single acorn, and one gets the impression that this character could be effortlessly spun off into a series of animated shorts that could rival some of the Warner Brothers’ work.

The rest of the cast, however, may not be as extendable. The filmmakers, having taken their characters through a wonderful series of adventures and a bit of personal evolution (no pun intended) in the original film, have fewer solid ideas on how they should progress in a sequel. Manny the Mammoth (Ray Romano) gets plenty - the pathos that he may be the last of his kind and then potential romance - but his buddies Sid the Sloth (John Leguizamo) and Diego the Tiger (Denis Leary) seem to be in basically the same roles they were in before, with a few minor details added in. Diego deals with his fear of water, and Sid learns he’s being worshipped by a clan who considers him a “fire god.” Sid definitely got a better deal than Diego.

The story begins with the characters living in a valley surrounded by a giant ice wall, with a whole host of other animals as colorful background. The temperature is going up, which means everyone’s pretty happy until shifty businessman Fast Tony (voice of Jay Leno) begins to spread hype that the world will soon end as a result, and insists the only way to survive is to use his products. (What kind of profit Tony can make in a world without money is another question.) After determining that the ice will indeed melt and fill the valley with water, the whole group of animals decide to trek to the other end of the valley, where a creepy vulture (voice by Will Arnett) has told them a large log sits which could float them to safety.

And so the trek begins, with occasional adventures added in for good measure. Manny is despondant over the fact that there seem to be no other mammals around…until he meets Ellie (voice of Queen Latifah), a mammoth who crashes in front of him out of a tree. Manny is overjoyed that he’s not the last, until Ellie informs him that she’s not a mammoth, she’s a possum, as her two possum brothers (voices of Seann William Scott and Josh Peck) assure her. Why she’s so sure of this, and how she comes to learn otherwise, help provide the emotional center of the film’s main story.

Queen Latifah’s voice work helps bring the whole main storyline weight and dimension, not to mention a lot of energy. She brings Ellie her own inherent sense of likeability, and we can see why Manny grows to like her, too, as frustrating as her bull-headed insistence that she’s actually a possum can be to him. Her brothers are a little annoying at first, but we come to realize that their insistence that Ellie is their sister is not simply a matter of self-preservation, but that they honestly think of her as one of their own. They can be a little stubborn, but they’re family.

The journey of the newly formed herd takes them the length of the valley, with peril brought by collapsing cliffs, rising water, and a pair of newly thawed prehistoric fish monsters which hunt the group whenever they’re near the sea. They are also constantly shadowed by a large group of vultures, waiting for their meals to be ready. “I wonder what they’re thinking?”, Sid asks. It would not be fair to spoil the way they respond to this question.

In short, there’s a lot to like here, a lot of nice ideas and moments, and the constant fun that the Scrat asides bring to the enterprise. It just lacks the unifying factors that made the original “Ice Age” such a great movie. The great ideas and fun moments in that film helped deepen the main story, giving its climax genuine emotional impact. Here, it’s fun to see everyone again, and Ellie is certainly a welcome addition to the main cast, but they’re gonna have to convince me that they have a great reason to make “Ice Age 3” (beyond the cash it’ll make) before I fully sign up for that one.