My Favourite Movies: Ice Age

People who know me know of my love of CGI movies – or as some people call them – cartoons. What I have found over the years is that these ‘cartoons’ are often better scripted, directed and acted than many of the so-called ‘main stream’ movies. Ice Age (released in 2002) was an early and very good example of this.

The story revolves around Manfred the Mammoth (voiced by Ray Romano) who refuses to migrate with everyone else. Along the way he picks up Sid the Sloth (voiced by John Leguizamo) who has, yet again, been abandoned by his family and is on the run from two very angry rhino’s. Seeing Manny as the only way he’ll survive Sid sticks to him like glue. Meanwhile a pack of vengeful Sabre-toothed tigers are attacking a human settlement in retaliation for several of their number being killed by them. High on the list is a baby who Diego (voiced by Denis Leary) is tasked with taking alive. When the baby’s mother jumps off a high waterfall the baby is lost from sight until he’s picked up by Sid and Manny. When Sid proposes to return the baby to his herd Manny reluctantly agrees and Diego initially pretends to lead them to the human settlement beyond Glacier Pass. Along the way and after several adventures the disparate group of misfits become their own ‘herd’ and join forces to resist the Sabre cat attack waiting for them.

This is a very clever and often hilariously funny film chocked full of cultural references – one of the many which had me in stitches was the discovery of a frozen UFO to which the baby gives the Vulcan hand signal to! It’s a good job I wasn’t drinking anything when I first saw that I can tell you. There’s lots of visual humour but also a lot of witty conversation between the three heroes especially from Sid who I identified with far too much! Of course we also had the weird chipmunk like creature Scrat who became a world-wide star with his continual failed attempts to store a few nuts for the winter often having consequences out of all proportion to his actions – and never quite getting the nuts he deserves. This is a film that can be enjoyed by the whole family but not let not having kids stop you. As with the best of these films this operates on several different levels simultaneously and will make you laugh no matter what your age. As to the sequels, I’m afraid that the less said about them the better. I saw Ice Age 2 which was just about passable and Ice Age 3 which was pretty dire (I should’ve been alerted to that by the inclusion of dinosaurs) and needless to say I didn’t see number 4. They should really know when to stop – but I suppose it’s only natural to follow a successful film with another and another until the last one bombs completely. I just wish they wouldn’t! But erase the sequels from your mind if you can. See the original and, by far, the best of the series. Enjoy.