Movie Review: Ice Age: The Meltdown

Our trio of unlikely friends from the Ice Age is back with a bigger, better and funnier sequel to the smash hit Ice Age (2002). So is Scrat, that freaky acorn-obsessed rodent and this time he has much more screen time in this gem. CG animated movies consume me to no end. “I loves ma CG cartoons”

The story predictably begins with Scrat on a quest to safeguard his new-found acorn. But we wouldn’t have it any other way. While hauling, with great difficulty and hysterics, his prize possession up a 90° ice ridge, he sticks his acorn into the side, water spouts from the hole, which Scrat attempts to plug with his finger, then another leak and another. Soon enough, Scrat is doing his over-caffeinated impersonation of the little Dutch boy. Hilarity ensues.

And the end of the opening scene, the audience already has stomach pains from all the laughing and it’s only the beginning. The story proper then begins; we find Sid running a day camp/waterslide park for all the local kids. An icy paradise. Sid tries desperately to make his buddies believe he’s got everything under control even though the kids use him as piñata and a punching bag.

After this humiliation, he climbs to the top of the ice shelf to make the slide down “The Eviscerator”, the most dangerous slide of all that no one dare try. Soon enough, Many and Diego are on the top as well, trying to convince Sid not to jump down the slide. All their tactics lead to Diego sliding onto the shelf; the ice cracks and we witness the horrifying truth. The shelf has melted and nothing but the ice levee is holding the water from flooding the isolated and fragile ecosphere down below.

The adventure begins to evacuate the valley to “the boat” at the other end, so the vulture says. But the vulture and his friends do this because they know there will be easy pickings on the way to “the boat”

Any quest is a quest for true self, for meaning. And The Meltdown does not disappoint. Manny is continually teased for being extinct or the last mammoth and this haunts him deeply. Diego is extremely hydrophobic and will have to face his fears in this inevitable water world that is about to be born. And Sid just wants to get some respect.

Article Author: David Desjardins

Dave works in the IT industry despite his better judgment. He’s an artist at heart with a critical mind. He enjoys photography more than he could ever express. Dave feels a need to tweak his brain with copious amounts of taurine to stay sharp while absorbing all kinds of media on any medium. …

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