A merry band of prehistoric critters meets up with a T. rex family in rollicking romp ‘Ice Age 3’
'Ice Age 3': A hilarious frozen treat
Published: July 02, 2009, 12:30 am
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‘‘Listen!” says one poetic prehistoric critter to another in his ragtag band. “The wind! It’s speaking to us.”
“What’s it say?” “I don’t know. I don’t speak wind.” You know how some movies successfully speak to your inner 10- year-old? And some others try to find your inner child and, instead, locate your inner 75-year-old screaming at all the neighborhood brats to get off his lawn?
Movie Review
“Ice Age:Dawn of the Dinosaurs”
Three and a half stars (out of four)
• Rated:PG
Ray Romano, Queen Latifah, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary and Simon Pegg voice the ragtag prehistoric animals dealing with parenthood and all those thunder lizards in the neighborhood. Directed by Carlos Saldanha and Michael Thurmeier, the third installment of the popular animated series. Opening today in area theaters.
Well, that gag did it for me in “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs,” which definitely falls into the first group. I wish I weren’t such a sucker for Abbott and Costello exchanges like that, but there you have it. I am, and there’s really nothing I can do about it at this stage of my life.
Which is why I had such a fine old time, after the first sluggish 20 minutes, at “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs,” the third in the hugely popular digitally animated series about a ragtag bunch of prehistoric animals who come together as their own wacked-out migratory “family.”
For those who don’t remember (or have never seen this bunch), there’s: a couple of sweet, sitcommy mastodons about to become first-time parents (Ray Romano and Queen Latifah); a stinky sloth with a slushy Daffy Duck lisp (John Leguizamo); an aging saber-toothed tiger who gets woozy when he runs too much (Denis Leary); and, new to their loony bunch, a delusional one-eyed weasel (Simon Pegg) who’s after a really, really big white dinosaur named Rudy the way Ahab used to be after Moby Dick.
These “Ice Age” movies, you may remember, were the brainchild of Chris Wedge, who preceded the first with a hilarious pre-credit sequence that hearkened back to the best of Chuck Jones’ Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote. It was all about what can happen to a squirrel in an icebound world when the right acorn presents itself to him at the wrong time.
The good news throughout “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” is that there are two squirrels after that acorn and they keep returning to their hijinks all through the movie. One is the lunatic scruffy one we’re already familiar with; the other is a sexy flying squirrel who has captured his heart and other lesser organs and fatally diluted his monomaniacal desire for that acorn (Kierkegaard: “Purity of heart is to will one thing.”)
Mostly, though, we’ve got the stories of those in our merry band of migrating animals: mastodons Manny and Ellie, looking for a place to rest where their imminently due baby can be born (shades of “Away We Go”); and their nutso sloth buddy Sid, who suddenly wanders off and decides to adopt three baby dinosaurs, which leads, at one point, to him wetly protesting: “I’m a single mother with three kids. I could use some compassion.”
Their saber-toothed tiger buddy Diego is even more depressed by all this family folderol than by signs of aging in his daily predatory pursuits. So he wanders off too.
They all come together to look for Sid, who has strayed far enough away to lead them all into a fiercely dangerous Lost World full of dinosaurs (shades of “Land of the Lost.” Does this movie have parodies of summer movies covered or what?).
It is here that the movie finally slaps into place and becomes altogether delightful.
The funny lines kept coming and the movie had one very clever little continuing tale to tell that was great fun to watch in 3-D:the ever-widening difference in scale between each one of these creatures with those higher up on the food chain. Lest anyone, for instance, think Manny and Ellie as mastodons are large (bigger than elephants, after all), there is that Mama dinosaur whose three babies are kidnapped by love-hungry, lisping Sid.
And then, after that, wait until you find out how big Rudy, the White Dinosaur is.
The trouble, of course, is that these “Ice Age” movies can’t take anyone by surprise anymore. Their pleasures are a foregone conclusion — which makes the slow and corny beginning of this one more dispiriting than it needed to be.
After that, I tell you, my inner child had a great old time.
jsimon@buffnews.com
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