SMT Weekly Flick by Paul Krismantis
Cino’s Dinos
Seven years ago the first Ice Age was 20th Century Fox’s attempt to prove that Pixar was not the only worthy player in the digital cartoon industry. It was successful. The movie pulled in more than $175 million and won rave reviews from both young and old viewers. The sequel Ice Age: The Meltdown followed it in 2006 and made more money but was much less impressive. Now the series continues with Dawn of the Dinosaurs and, to be frank, it proves that this Ice Age should have ended eons ago.
Once again we get the original foursome of Manny the mammoth (Ray Romano), Diego the sabretooth tiger (Denis Leary), Sid the sloth (John Leguizamo), and the voiceless Scrat. Once again Scrat is the most interesting. This time around Manny is expecting child with his mate Ellie (Queen Latifah), and the unusual “herd” is ready to settle things down. That is, until Diego realizes he is losing his edge as a hunter, and determines he needs to rediscover himself out in the wild. No sooner does he leave than Sid decides he wants his own family, and suddenly the group is split apart, their once unified front disassembled.
It doesn’t take long for Sid to find himself in some trouble (no surprise to Ice Age fans) when he stumbles across three Tyrannosaurus eggs and takes them on as his own children. They are easily distinguishable as different amongst the species of the Ice Age, and so Manny takes it upon himself to be the voice of reason to Sid (also no surprise to Ice Age fans). The mammoth lets Sid know that his “kids” are pretty unusual and need to be returned. No sooner does he say this than the Rex-lings mother shows up to retrieve them, wreaking havoc in the process. This is no good for Sid, who believes he is their rightful parent as he was “at their birth”, so he follows the Tyrannosaur to get them back. He follows the Tyrannosaurus to a hidden world underneath the ice where all the dinos still exist, and where Manny and Diego will have to save him from himself. Of course, during all this Scrat is still chasing his acorn, only this time there’s a seductive fellow chaser standing in his way.
Dawn of the Dinosaurs seems to prove that the producers of Ice Age believe in the maxim, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” After the stellar box-office success of the first two, it seems it was easier for them to keep the main formula together, albeit with the twist of adding everyone’s favorite extinct reptiles (ok I know Dinosaurs aren’t technically reptiles, so sue me). Unfortunately this means that the film feels played out and predictable the whole time, and it does. There are a couple bright spots, including every scene with Scrat and his new love interest, and some of the parts involving the new character Buck (Simon Pegg). The worst part of Dawn of the Dinosaurs is that two talented comedians are involved but breathe no life into the movie. Ray Romano is as dull as his character on Everybody Loves Raymond is supposed to be in his fictional role, and Denis Leary is about as humorless as the actual Ice Age itself. How can these two guys voice characters in a film and not tickle our funny bones even once? It is baffling to be sure.
To be fair, the kids in the audience with me (including my 11-year-old sister) thought the film was hilarious. They also all got into the soundtrack’s title song by Queen Latifah which is played at various points in the movie (my sister even sang along as if it was the coolest thing out now). When dealing with a children’s film, this cannot be overlooked. I guess I’m just still spoiled by the brilliance of Up. So if you want the kids out of the house during the long, school-less summer, Dawn of the Dinosaurs is one film you can count on to keep them busy. And if you don’t really get it, don’t worry, I didn’t either.
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs 3/5
Rated PG. 87 mins
