“Ice Age: The Meltdown” (2006)

Ice Age: The Meltdown

Grade: C+

Because every successful animated movie needs to be turned into a money-making franchise, Ice Age: The Meltdown continues the adventures of Manny the Mammoth, Sid the Sloth and Diego the Sabretooth to unfortunate diminishing returns. There are a few laughs, but the storyline lacks cohesion and imagination. A few more notes on Ice Age: The Meltdown:

Directing:

The first Ice Age featured somewhat spare animation with semi-artful flourishes from director Chris Wedge. For Ice Age 2, Wedge is replaced by Carlos Saldanha, who takes advantage of the sequel’s bigger budget by using CGI that is more vivid and detailed. Even though the movie is pleasing on the eyes, the colorful animation ultimately emphasizes the episodic aimlessness of the storyline: we blur from one irreverent escapade to the next.

Acting:

Ray Romano, John Leguizamo and Denis Leary reprise their roles as anthropomorphic Pleistocene mammals, but their talents are underutilized on a script that doesn’t give them much to do. Ditto for newcomer Queen Latifah (she plays a woolly mammoth who thinks she’s a possum). Due to the poor writing, the characters have become caricatures of themselves.

Writing:

The central premise of Ice Age: The Meltdown is exactly as the title describes: the ice age is ending, and the valley will soon be flooded. Relevant environmental concerns aside, the storyline is another we-must-get-from-A-to-B journey that essentially follows the same arc as the original film. But with a lot less heart and a lot less laughs: the funniest moment of the entire movie is when a chalicotheriid unleashes a corrosive fart into Sid’s wide-open mouth. That’s the level of intelligence we’re dealing with here.

Music:

There is an electric piano motif, played every time Manny and Ellie share an emotional scene together, that sounds like it is going to be the beginning of a pop/R&B song. But the song in question never comes — John Powell’s soundtrack is just as empty and half-baked as the rest of the movie. (He’s the same guy who scored Gigli, by the way.)

Ending (SPOILERS):

The most entertaining parts of the movie are the wordless cutaway scenes to Scrat the Squirrel trying to hide his nut. Fittingly, he is the focal point of the film’s coda, the only worthwhile “storyline” in the entire movie, in which he dies and goes to acorn heaven. Give him a movie next.

“Stop, hey! What’s that sound/All the mammoths are in the ground” — Sid

Why Ice Age: The Meltdown gets a C+:

Ice Age 2 is worth watching just to see the main trio back on the big screen, but a lack of purpose and imagination in the storyline makes sure that it’s the last time we’ll willingly see them again. (The three sequels after this one continually get worse and worse.)

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