LogFAQs > #961913988

32. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

Ermine: 6
Red: 22
Evillord: 27
Karo: 29
Inviso: 34
Johnbobb: 38

Total: 156

Ermine: I think it's safe to say that this is the best Ice Age movie. I think the first could give it a run for its money for sure, the heart and story of the first would definitely edge it out in those regards but this one actually has some damn good humor in it. It doesn't really care about having a good story and just puts the characters in a ton of funny and stupid scenarios which make you laugh more often than not. Sure there's plenty of duds in terms of jokes, but there's enough hits that I can forgive them for the misses.

Buck is a great character. I wasn't exactly sold on him at first, but good god that Crime Scene scene was incredible. "Leaving broccoli?... a vegetable." Best scene in the movie. A++

One thing that I think animated sequels do a lot is ruin their characters from their previous entries. Thankfully this isn't the case here and all of the main chars stay true to their character and even improve in some ways. I think the opossums were better than their introduction movie... though that might be the fault of the 2nd movie really not being that good at all. Ellie is a more entertaining character. Diego is good. Manny stays about the same and Sid is just Sid.

And then we have the Scrat story going on during the movie. This was fantastic as well. I literally gasped when Scrat pushed Acorn away. I wasn't ready for that kind of plot twist and I could feel Acorn's pain. That whole song and scene with Acorn being dejected and everything was great. Good stuff. I'm glad they got back together.

Red: Did you want more Ice Age? If you did, you got more ice age. The same characters are back, they meet an apparently not one-off character because a sequel releases soon with him in the title, have an adventure avoid death and then everyone is back to one happy family with a new kid. This is pretty standard inoffensive sequel fair for this list. Ice age is what it is; this doesn't try to be anything different; it doesn't really spit on itself; it is just another ice age movie. There are already two more of these, I'd be surprised if they were anything different.

Evillord: I couldn't help but catch this movie forcing itself into a cliched kids' movie plot, especially with the contrived fight between the Mammoth and the Sabertooth, but I wound up liking it more than expected. Buck was funny, and I liked the idea of a secret underground world where Dinosaurs continue to exist long past their time. The set-piece where they had to fight off dinosaurs at the same time as delivering a baby was cool too. The subplot about the two squirrels got kind of tiresome, but I liked how it ended.

Karo: The third Ice Age movie, and by this time they had pretty much given up on any sort of historical accuracy about the time period that these characters are living.
So what happens is Sid kidnaps some T-rex eggs so he can be a mommy, and when the mother dino comes to get them back Sid gets dragged along with them to this totally original underground cavern filled with prehistoric critters. The others want the useless sloth back for some reason, and so they all have to go to his rescue, including a heavily pregnant Ellie, which leads to them having to fight off bloodthirsty velociraptors during an impromptu bout of childbirth. Man, with parents like these no wonder the mammoths went extinct.
The movie is still quite funny, and there is a surprisingly amount of risque humor here for a kids flick. Most of the laughs this time come from the new character of Buck and his deranged hermit antics. Sid is not really that funny when separated from his two comic foils, and in fact most of the old characters don't really bring much to the table this time around. This is now just the Buck the weasel show, folks.
Still, there's something missing here that the first two movies had, the feeling of family between all these outcast weirdos and how they would playfully jibe each other but still care. Buck is a funny guy, but it never really felt like he fit in with all that, and the ending put an emphatic stamp on that notion.
It might not be as good as the first two, but still you could do a lot worse when it comes to animated movies from that decade.

Inviso: This movie was frustrating. Its not that the original Ice Age (or even the sequel) were high cinema or anything like that. But this movie just felt completely devoid of any sense of purpose whatsoever. The first two films had Manny as the main character, dealing with the loss of his family, and the slow re-establishment of Sid, Diego, and Ellie as his new family. Dawn of the Dinosaurs has no main character. All three of Manny, Sid and Diego have an overarching story of moving on in their lives, but all three of them are battling for central focus, which means none of them has a properly-established story. Mannys still a worrywart about his impending baby, Sid wants to have a family of his own and gets involved with a T-Rex mother, and Diego feels like hes losing his edge by hanging around with herbivores. None of this is ever developed enough to warrant its inclusion. Throw in the love story of Scrap and the flying squirrel girl, and you have a film that cares more about being wacky and appealing to children, than it cares about telling a compelling narrative.

Johnbobb: ICE AGE IS NOT A GOOD SERIES STOP MAKING THEM PLEASE I BEG YOU