You may be ashamed to admit it, but let’s face it: you know you snickered when you first saw that squirrel futilely trying to get the acorn throughout the course of the first Ice Age. Or perhaps I’m wrong, and you didn’t laugh until you saw Sid the Sloth unsuccessfully stealing the last watermelon from the Dodo Birds. Whichever scene it was that made you laugh, Ice Age is one of those few cartoons that appeals to a child’s sense of humor as well as an adult’s. Of course the plot and characterizations may be simplified (it is of course a children’s movie), but with a smattering of adult-directed humour, Pixar’s Ice Age was a sure hit.
Then the reality that is Hollywood hits. As we have all witnessed by now, the motto of “one good turn deserves another” eventually takes over and the producers can no longer resist the allure of a sequel. Throw together a plot with a new antagonist, bring back the old characters (perhaps a few new ones), and you have a blockbuster. I mean it’s sure to be just as good as the first, right? Well, not quite.
Ice Age: The Meltdown (or, as I like to call it, Ice Age II) brings the surprisingly endearing cast of the first movie back to the big screen and back into a whole new set of problems. Rather than dealing with the threat of Neanderthals, they are now dealing with the threat of the impending disintegration of the glaciers and consequential flooding of their valley. Taking the advice of a vulture, Manny the Mammoth, Sid the Sloth, and Diego the Sabertooth (with voice talents of Ray Romano, John Leguizamo and Denis Leary, respectively) take off on an adventure that will hopefully lead them to safety.
On the way, Manny starts to notice that most animals point to him and call him the “last of his breed.” He starts to panic, thinking that the mammoths will go extinct, until he and his friends come across a beautiful female mammoth, her voice supplied by Queen Latifah. Of course the last female mammoth on the planet would be raised by opossums and also think that she was one, too (hanging from trees and all).
After picking up another mammoth and a few opossums, this unlikely clan of mismatched misfits make their way through the woods and valleys trying to evade the flood and in the process they encounter some newly thawed predators, deal with painful memories and tackle some fears. And not to spoil the movie for you, but yeah, there’s a happy ending.
Situations like these give ample space for humor to abound in this movie but it rarely goes any farther than a forced laugh or snicker. Perhaps I’m just completely against sequels and wasn’t open-minded enough to actually enjoy this one more than the original, but good sequels, especially with cartoons, are few and far between. If you adored the first Ice Age, by all means see The Meltdown, just don’t be expecting the impossible. An animated sequel that surpasses the original? Only when the world freezes over.