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Review: Ice Age

Review by MAJORMIKE | 03/15/2002 | 13:53:44 PM PST

Ice Ice Baby: Romano, Leguizamo, and Leary lend their vocal talents to Ice Age, a computer-generated adventure.

If you?ve been watching television lately?especially the Fox networks?you?ve no doubt noticed a little critter scurrying around in constant pursuit of an acorn. This clever marketing ploy is part of merciless push by 20th Century-Fox to vault their flagship computer-animated film Ice Age into the same league as anything produced by Pixar and DreamWorks.

Ice Age is the latest in a string of cleverly constructed computer-generated movies where half the humor is visual. In the context of other recent releases, Ice Age lacks Shrek?s biting subtle humor, but it delivers more visual polish and engrossing characters than Monsters, Inc. It?s entertainment you don?t have to think about.

There?s nothing like an abandoned baby to bring a group of misfits together?here, a motley bunch of prehistoric animals find a little toddler and try and return it to his Ice Age-fleeing tribe. There?s Sid the Sloth (who provides most of the movie?s comic relief), Manfred the mammoth (who shows most of his emotion with his trunk); and Diego the sabertooth tiger (who joins the group with the secret motive of making the baby dinner for his tribe). And then there?s the scene-stealing Scrat, a twitchy little acorn-clutching critter, who inadvertently causes mass destruction whenever he tries to bury his prized possession. Excellent voice casting brings the characters to life with Denis Leary, Ray Romano, and?especially?John Leguizamo all perfectly fitted for their personages.

The quest leads the main players right to movie clich? #276: Unlikely characters bonding through a series of adventures and life-threatening mishaps. Lots of ?I love you, man? speeches abound, and even though the ending?s a foregone conclusion, the awesome visual presentation keeps you hooked. The animation?s breathtaking, with vast vistas, reflective surfaces, and fine details right down to the furry animal bodies. Humans, though, don?t fare as well and become an unwanted distraction; they look more like claymation.

Ice Age?s humor is fast paced in the vein of a Road Runner cartoon: A character?s noggin is forced into the shape of a cube, and is reverted to normal with a simple shake of the head, and perfect cookie-cutter outlines of personages are left when someone crashes through a wall. Stuff kids like. Yet there?s some cerebral humor, too, such as a hilarious ?melon? game against a pack of ?dojo Dodos? with a sidesplitting climax.

Nothing in Ice Age is particularly revolutionary, but in a weekend where the movie-opening alternatives are Resident Evil and Showtime, your ticket-purchase should be a no-brainer.