Ice Age (2002)

[IronParrot]

My review, from http://cynima.dhs.org

SUMMARY

A mammoth (Ray Romano), a sloth (John Leguizamo) and a sabretooth tiger (Denis Leary) band together to bring a lost human child back to its tribe.

RECOMMENDED FOR:

Kids who go for slapstick animation.

REVIEW

Ice Age is snowballs of fun, but too cold to be worth more than one viewing. It is an entertaining romp designed to evoke laughs from the kids, and satisfies that task thoroughly, though it rarely exceeds that level of achievement. It also probably could have paid more attention to the golden rule of film that absence is preferred over mediocrity.

This basic violation that hampers the entire movie is most evident in its weak and often annoying dialogue, none of which is quotable or profound, all of which is colloquial and distracting. The whole idea behind animation is to let the pictures tell the story as much as possible, and thus, no dialogue is better than bad dialogue. You'd think that the shining example of the all-but-silent Bambi and the hulking verbal monstrosity of Dinosaur would have taught the animation world a lesson, but apparently, Ice Age's writers seem bent on pandering to an audience comprised only of kids who can't tell when dialogue is inane, so long as they understand it. By making the sloth a talkative sidekick that John Leguizamo's voice talents take everywhere short of breaking into a rendition of "Nature Boy", the failure of the writing to bring the character up to the standards of wit set by certain donkeys and bulbous one-eyed monsters is ever more obvious.

That said, basically everything good about the film happens when the characters just shut up. The hilarious dialogue-free sequence with the rodent and the nut from the teaser trailer that comprises Ice Age's opening scene hearkens back to the visual humour of the late great Chuck Jones and the antics of Wile E. Coyote. The recurrence of the rodent and the nut as a visual subplot keeps the movie alive with fresh humour. Other great visual gags are found when the adventure leads the central characters into an ice cave, wherein various creatures (need I spoil the joke?) are trapped. The animators seem to realize that the quality of their animation style is nowhere near the depth and detail of Pixar's league, and actually take advantage of Ice Age's cartoony look.

However, this cartoony look does not do anything to sustain the film's dramatic moments. Here is a fair attempt at smooth transitions from comedy to poignancy that were so well executed in Shrek, but the visual style limits the film from ever entering the realm of the second. The most emotionally involving and artistically original moment in the film actually escapes from the medium that defines the rest of the movie, and takes the shape of an animated cave painting that is - surprise, surprise - free of dialogue. Other moments are believably dramatic because of the support lent by an effective musical score woven in the style of the Native Americans. But these rare dramatic moments do not a film make. There is also rarely, if ever, any sense of urgency or peril. The first half of the film is a smattering of intended humour, erratically intercut; the movie does not truly settle in until near the end, when the various character conflicts are fully fleshed out, albeit too late. The sabretooth "villains" play out like the hyenas in The Lion King, but without any fearsome and commanding presence holding them together. In another example of absence over mediocrity, no drama would probably have been preferable to poor drama.

In terms of plot, the film is a retread of Monsters, Inc. with a sprinkle of various elements from Shrek. This is certainly an unfair comparison because Ice Age was already in development when last year's animation titans were unleashed, but the parallels are simply unavoidable. A big solitary brute saves a talkative little guy who tags along after him; the two find a human kid and try to return it to its family; there's even a sequence where the characters cross over a boiling pit of lava. This should ring some bells. The end result is that Ice Age looks worse than it actually is, because of the abundant similarities to far superior films that came before it - films that have unintrusive and witty dialogue, and manage to be both comedic and poignant.

Despite its flaws, Ice Age is a light and entertaining comedy worthy of a matinee for the kids. But its flaws, as well as its existence beneath the shadow of recent achievements in animation, doom it to burial under the glaciers of forgettability.

[emplynx]

I thought it was an OK movie. The rodent and nut thing was good, especially at the end... The Star Wars trailer was good!

[dark over lord]

Originally posted by emplynx
I thought it was an OK movie. The rodent and nut thing was good, especially at the end... The Star Wars trailer was good!

Oh ya the trailer rocked. But back on topic. the movie was good if you understood what was going on. Some of the humor was made for kids around 10 who could under stand it. The only bad part was that i stepped on some gum.