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The Ice Age is coming to a close and Manny the mammoth, Sid the Sloth and Diego the sabre-tooth cat are relaxing in their valley home; a paradise of waterfalls and geysers. But as the ice recedes, they realise their habitat is threatened by a huge flood. A massive ice dam at the end of the valley is about to burst. So they must convince everyone to head for higher ground and escape themselves. But can they escape the rising water and the monsters that inhabit it?
When it arrived, the first "Ice Age" movie was a total surprise; a bunch of lovable characters engaged in buddy comedy shenanigans, rendered in crisp computer-generated animation with a generous topping of laugh-out-loud gags. So how does the sequel compare? Well, on a purely technical level, the franchise has gone from strength to strength. A larger budget means more animators and more animators means more characters. The number of mammal species represented has increased since the first movie, so there are lots more chances to show off the company's technical expertise with fur and skin textures (elks, beavers, molehogs, aardvarks and oxen). All of which are superbly rendered, making the creatures as furry, fluffy, (or in the case of the reptiles) scaly as they need to be. They all have a good musculature and weight, though they aren't entirely realistic. So they move in a consistent fashion but are still able to defy the laws of physics when required. Certain characteristics like the eyes are exaggerated either to give them a greater range of
expression or just to make them more overtly comedic. Saldanha still has great affection for his core of original characters and treats them warmly, allowing you to laugh with them rather than at them. The melting ice allows for a greater range of environments. The backgrounds are superb with almost photo-realistic elements in some of them, whether it's glaciers, rocks or trees. The ice is so convincing you could get cold just looking at it and the water moves in the right way. The eventual slow-motion dam collapse is a sight to behold.
In terms of direction, Carlos Saldanha has more tricks at his disposal this time round. He shoots much of the film like a disaster movie, cutting back and forth between the animals' progress and the crumbling dam to keep the tension going. He has a greater array of shots available to him too, creating aerial shots that give some idea of the scale of the landscape and catastrophe. His timing is spot on, giving the many gags real punch. There's plenty of slapstick to keep the little ones happy, much of it involving Scrat's relentless quest for acorns. And his misadventures are prolonged series of gags - if it can get worse for him, it will.
New to the mix are the amusing musical numbers that see a flock of vultures singing about eating the other animals to the tune of "Food Glorious Food". What makes it hilarious is that they do it as a full-blown Busby Berkley sequence. There's also a musical interlude that sees Sid being worshipped as a god. Some of the characters just look funny (like a bug-eyed vulture chick) and others act funny. There are two possums that cracked me up just by doing the urban gangster peace-out sign (tapping their chests twice with a fist and giving a sideways victory V). The trick is knowing when to end a gag and how to insert a pause before the punch-line and Saldanha is capable of both. There's plenty of excitement to keep kids glued to the screen and humour that works for both children and adults, making a thoroughly enjoyable hour and a half.
For once the American obsession of writing by committee works on a film script. Written by four different people, it ups the gag ratio considerably from the first film. There's far less of the buddy comedy that characterised the original movie. Here the focus is far more on the gags with animals in peril storyline as background. But on the plus side, there is far more Scrat. He eventually vents his frustration at not getting what he wants, making for some hilarious moments.
The main characters have their own separate storylines, with Manny falling for lady mammoth Ellie, who thinks she's a possum and Sid finding he's more popular than he'd ever imagined. Sadly Diego is sidelined and reduced to little more than providing sarcastic quips every now and then. New characters are introduced, including a shady shyster called Fast Tony who's always trying to make a quick profit and Ellie's two actual possum brothers. In order to fully enjoy the movie, I think it helps if you've seen the first film, which is where all the relationships have been defined. The comedy has a tendency towards the absurd - ramping up the Looney Tunes style slapstick to excessive levels. Though there's plenty of character comedy to balance it out. Like the vultures acting like eye-in-the-sky traffic reporters commentating on the mammals' progress. The dialogue is family friendly, but has enough verve to engage the adult audience. There isn't much in the way of verbal tomfoolery, apart from some nicely written put-downs and insults. The pacing is solid and though there's never any doubt there won't be a happy ending, there are enough sticky moments to make things exciting.
The original voice cast returns with Ray Romano providing a warm, paternal centre to the group as Manny. Sid the sloth is still the lisping, cowardly buffoon with a sense of self-importance we all know and love thanks to John Leguizamo's spirited vocal performance. Dennis Leary is as sarcastic as ever, though underused as Diego the sabre-tooth cat. They are joined by Queen Latifah as confused girl-mammoth Ellie. Her inexperience at providing voice-overs is clear, but she tries hard in a part that would always mean playing second fiddle. Jay Leno is surprisingly good as Fast Tony, while Seann William Scott and Josh Peck are manic as possums Crash and Eddie.
The original score by John Powell treats the movie as if it were a big, live-action production. The movie opens with bright 50s' style brass-based lounge music that sets the jolly tone. But it is soon undercut by horror string arrangements that show the literal cracks in our heroes' paradise. There's tense gamelan that fits the disaster movie leanings of the film, offset by playful flutes and native American pipes for the lighter moments. Twinkly piano and music box motifs underline the growing romance between the two mammoths. Then Powell brings out the big guns for the grand finale with Bond-style beats and tense strings topped off with triumphal brass.
"Ice Age 2: The Meltdown" was for me, possibly even better than the first. Though there is less of a strong narrative here, it is more than made up for by the copious number of jokes. The film goes off on a number of bizarre tangents (like the pygmy sloth subplot) that take the franchise to a whole new level of absurdity. Technically the film is certainly stronger than the original, but never overpowers the audience with "look at me, look at me" effects. If you loved the original film as much as I did, you're bound to enjoy this one. It's the kind of thing parents and kids can happily watch together, chuckling along with the jokes.
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Your favorite sub-zero heroes are back for another incredible adventure in the super-cool ... more
sequel to the global hit comedy Ice Age!The action heats up - and so does the temperature - for Manny, Sid, Diego, and Scrat. Trying to escape the valley to avoid...
![Ice Age 2 : The Meltdown [2006] [DVD]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/78482100.jpg "Ice Age 2 : The Meltdown [2006] [DVD]")
![Ice Age 2: The Meltdown (2 Disc) [2006] Limited Edition [DVD]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/78373264.jpg "Ice Age 2: The Meltdown (2 Disc) [2006] Limited Edition [DVD]")
Oct 6th, 2006
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