I loved “The Longest Daycare,” the Simpson’s short that plays before Ice Age. It’s a funny, gently paced thriller for kids with jokes that parents and film geeks will love. In fact I wanted more of that and less of “Ice Age: Continental Drift.” The main feature is nicely animated but is saddled with a story so by-the-book it feels like it would have been old hat even in the ice age.
The movie begins when Ice Age regular, the saber-toothed squirrel Scrat’s efforts to protect his only possession—his prized acorn—lead to the great Continental Drift. As the earth shifts and breaks apart woolly mammoth Manny (Ray Romano), Sid the sloth (John Leguizamo) and Diego the sarcastic smilodon (Dennis Leary) get separated from their families. Their journey to reunite with their kin puts them directly into the path of ape pirate Captain Gutt (Peter Dinklage) and his murderous band of misfits, including Shira (Jenifer Lopez), a female saber-toothed tiger who learns the meaning of friendship and love.
Manny and friends are not aided by a lazy script which feels like it was run through the Cliche-O-Matic ™ Prehistoric Model. The continental divide device is novel, but the theme–family and friends mean everything–has been done before and better.
There are some funny sitcom gags at the beginning—Manny tells his daughter she’ll be allowed to go out with boys when “I’m dead plus three days to make sure I’m dead”—but may of the jokes in the main part of the film come out of nowhere and feel tacked on. In the middle of the great land divide apropos of nothing a bird asks a mammoth if water tastes like boogers when they drink through their trunks. It has nothing to do with anything, except to insert a laugh to maintain audience interest.
It feels cheap and not nearly as sophisticated as the gags in any of the Pixar movies that are always organic to the story. There is one self-aware comment, however, that works. “We fought dinosaurs in the ice age,” says Sid, “it didn’t make sense, but it was fun.”
The voice work is by-the-book, with the exception of Peter Dinklage whose Caption Gutt brings some life to this museum piece.
He’s a horrifying and ghastly seadog (or, more rightly, ape), but in a good and kid friendly way. But the most horrifying thing about the “Ice Age” series is that they still have 20,000 years of history and sequel potential to go until Manny and company retire.
SYNOPSIS: The movie begins when Ice Age regular, the saber-toothed squirrel Scrat’s efforts to protect his only possession—his prized acorn—lead to the great Continental Drift. As the earth shifts and breaks apart woolly mammoth Manny (Ray Romano), Sid the sloth (John Leguizamo) and Diego the sarcastic smilodon (Dennis Leary) get separated from their families. Their journey to reunite with their kin puts them directly into the path of ape pirate Captain Gutt (Peter Dinklage) and his murderous band of misfits, including Shira (Jenifer Lopez), a female saber-toothed tiger who learns the meaning of friendship and love.
Star Ratings:
Richard: 2 Stars
Chris: 2 ½ Stars
Richard: Chris, I loved the Simpson’s short that plays before Ice Age. It’s a funny, gently paced thriller for kids with jokes that parents and film geeks will love. In fact I wanted more of that and less of Ice Age. The main feature is nicely animated but is saddled with a story so by-the-book it feels like it would have been old hat even in the ice age. That’s my take. You, however, had two of the world’s youngest film critics with you. What did they think?
Chris: Indeed, I brought my sons Jack (5) and Elliot (3) with me and as you’ll read in the sidebar below, they were more impressed than I. Now, I’d watch a movie about lawn darts if it was in 3D so my eyeballs were pleased by all the comin-at-ya razzle dazzle. But other, than that…Ice Age left me kinda numb. And here’s my biggest problem with the picture and all of the Ice Age films…. Manny the Mammoth…. you can’t see his mouth. He has NO expressions. The dullest animated hero in recent memory.
RC: Manny’s not aided by a lazy script which feels like it was run through the Cliche-O-Matic. The continental divide device is novel, but the theme–family and friends mean everything–has been done before and better. Couple that with jokes that come out of nowhere and feel tacked on–apropos of nothing a bird asks a mammoth if water tastes like boogers when they drink through their trunks–and you’re left with a movie that is as lifeless as the expression on Manny’s face.
CA: Absolutely. It also doesn’t help that dead-eyed Manny is voiced by Ray Romano, whose velvet tones remind me of a post-pubescent Kermit the Frog. The rest of the cast phones it in too (maybe literally!), obviously due in part to that sleepy script you’ve mentioned. The only one that registers is GAME OF THRONES’ Peter Dinklage, who is suitably monstrous and scuzzy as the pirate monkey Caption Gutt.
RC: Agreed, Dinklage is horrifying and scuzzy, in a good way. Also horrifying: they still have 20,000 years of history and sequel potential to go until Manny and company retire.
CA: Until they end up in space, right? I think we both agree that the film leave much to be desired dramatically, but our gripes won’t stop the kids from dragging their parents to it this weekend.
“We fought dinosaurs in the ice age,” Sid the Sloth says in this weekend’s Ice Age: Continental Drift. “It didn’t make sense, but it was fun.”
It doesn’t make sense because dinosaurs were already extinct by the time Manny, Sid and Diego entered the ice age, but the popular kids’ movies aren’t trying to teach, they’re simply continuing a long-held Hollywood tradition of bending history to suit their stories.
Here are 10 other bits of Hollywood history that earn a failing grade.
1 When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth drew on Phoenician, Latin and Sanskrit to create a fake caveman language. Here’s a quick Berlitz primer in cavespeak: For “come back” say “neecha,” “akita” is “look” and “neecro” is “bad.”
2 The man-eating Rhedosaurusis in The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is a dinosaur, but one that no paleontologist would recognize. It’s rumoured the mythical beast’s name was inspired by the initials of the man who created it, special effects wiz Ray Harryhausen.
3 Mel Gibson wore clothes from the future in Braveheart. The movie is set in the late 13th century, but the kilts he wears didn’t come into existence until 300 years later.
4 Instead of dying in the gladiatorial arena, as Gladiator would have you believe, Emperor Commodus was strangled in a bathtub a decade after his would-be movie assassin (played by Russell Crowe) died.
5 The Spartans in 300 run into battle against the Persian army protected only by leather thongs and rock-hard abs, when in fact they wore bronze armour.
6 As a knight returning from the Crusades in 1272, Nic Cage discovers a plague outbreak in Season of the Witch. Trouble is, the Black Death didn’t strike until 76 years later.
7 In 10,000 BC woolly mammoths are used as labour to build the pyramids in Egypt. Wrong! Woolly mammoths weren’t desert creatures and the pyramids weren’t built until 2500 BC.
8 In Elizabeth: The Golden Age, the Queen is courted by Ivan the Terrible in 1585, who, in reality, was dead by then, felled by a stroke while playing chess.
9 California joins the Union at the end of Legend of Zorro in a ceremony that includes President Lincoln. Whoops! California became a state in 1850 and Lincoln wasn’t president until 1861.
10 The title of the historical disaster film Krakatoa: East of Java is a geographical head-scratcher. Krakatoa was actually west of Java.
I loved “The Longest Daycare,” the Simpson’s short that plays before Ice Age. It’s a funny, gently paced thriller for kids with jokes that parents and film geeks will love. In fact I wanted more of that and less of “Ice Age: Continental Drift.” The main feature is nicely animated but is saddled with a story so by-the-book it feels like it would have been old hat even in the ice age.
