Exceptionally Well Done

Rating: 8/10 (14 March 2008)

Marvellous animation, a good story and fun characters all add up to make "Ice Age" one of the better "kids" movies I've seen. The story - set during the Ice Age - revolves around a giant sloth named Sid who stumbles across a human baby, and decides that the baby should be returned to its family. He enlists the reluctant help of Manfred the Woolly Mammoth, and the duo then first do battle with Diego the Sabre-Toothed Cat, who wants to capture the baby, and then, through a series of adventures, manage to turn Diego into a somewhat surprising and surprised ally.
Sid is clearly the highlight of the movie. He provides most of the action and most of the fun - a giant sloth who just can't keep still or keep quiet. And yet, for all the humour Sid injects, I appreciated that there were some serious plot elements in the movie as well. The trio stumble upon some cave paintings as they seek out the baby's human family, and a painting of a mammoth family obviously makes Manfred remember his own family, who were apparently hunted down and killed by humans. This also helps to explain Manfred's rather gruff exterior, and penchant for aloofness. Diego's apparent death scene near the end of the movie also injects a dramatic feel, although, on that note, I question the decision to bring Diego back at the end of the movie. His "death" was a poignant moment, and made the point forcefully of what we should be willing to sacrifice for our friends. Since Disney killed off Bambi's mom, it seems that animated children's stories have wanted to avoid the reality of death. Having said that, the combination of the three (or four, if you count the human baby) points out that families come in many different shapes - "it's what herds do" is the repeated mantra as Sid, Manfred and Diego (as unlikely a herd as you could imagine) find themselves coming to each other's rescue over and over again as the story progresses.
There's some great satirical material here: as the trio trudge southward to escape the ice, Sid reflects wistfully that some global warming would be great, and I appreciated the irony of the fact (as was pointed out by one of the characters) that, in this movie, animals could talk and humans couldn't! The portrayal of the dodo birds was also quite hilarious.
All in all, this is an extremely well done family movie. 8/10