Well done. Not great, but worth it if you like cartoons.

Rating: Null/10 (17 March 2002)

It's not quite up there with the likes of great animated films such as Toy Story and The Iron Giant, but it will definitely keep you entertained. The action and slapstick bits feel much like watching a classic Looney Tune short. The dialogue has enough witticisms to get it by, but thankfully knows when to stop and let the physical humor garner the laughs. The movie does have a serious side involving returning a human baby to its tribe. It serves well enough to provide a plot, but couldn't have been pushed much further without making this a tedious movie. The voice talent is overall very good. John Lequizamo's Sid the Sloth in particular fits the character quite well. I didn't mind Ray Romano's monotonic rendering of the mammoth, and his tone makes sense when you learn the character's background, but I can see where some people wouldn't like it. Visually, the animal characters are all rendered in a unique and distinctly caricatured style. The humans don't look as good given their style, but since the story doesn't focus on them it wasn't too distracting. The scenery is sometimes beautiful, given that there's only so much you can do with a movie set mostly in the snow.

In short, when it tries to be funny, it generally succeeds. The plot is indeed an amalgam of Things We've Seen Before, but I was willing to forgive that to get to enjoy the laughs. And the squirrel IS as funny as everyone has said. An unflappable rodent committed to his goal, I too hope we see more of his plight in the future.