A great film for children and adults, but they needed more of that squirrel!

Rating: 9/10 (12 December 2003)

Ice Age is a visually stunning animated feature that takes after Shrek in that it is wisely aimed toward adults just as much as children - an important detail the oversight of which just about single-handedly caused the failure of Cats & Dogs. It is structured unfortunately like a birthday cake, in that the candy frosting is at the very beginning and then the actual body of the film, the cake, bears much less of an immediate appeal but is still willingly consumed.
The spectacular opening sequence in the film is probably the most recognizable part of the film since it is what makes up the majority of the theatrical trailers. By far the most entertaining part of the film, it introduces a lowly squirrel (lowly in that it is one of the few animals in the film that doesn't speak) that makes occasional and very welcome appearances throughout the rest of the film. After this opening sequence (which easily surpasses the opening sequence of any James Bond film), we are quickly introduced to an accident prone sloth named Sid, who is saved from a couple of angry rhinos by a caring mammoth (Manfred) who would just as soon save his life and never be seen with him again. They become a grudging partnership when they come across a human baby, as their care of life itself overcomes Manfred's dislike of Sid and his desire to be left alone.
I was a little disappointed that this was going to be yet another animated movie with talking animals (seriously, do we not already have enough of these?) the way I was with Dinosaur in 2000, but for the most part, Ice Age manages to avoid being a routine animated talking animal movie. There is a curious interaction between animals that clearly do not belong together, given their random places on the food chain. Sid sticks with Manfred because Manfred is huge and scary and able to protect Sid from the threat of predators if he can only convince him to let him tag along. Sid does this, even though this is obviously not a symbiotic relationship, and then ultimately they are joined by a sabertooth tiger, of all things, who they trust only because he claims to know a shorter way to get to the humans and return the baby, and also because he alone is not much of a threat to Manfred.
(spoilers) The place where this film graciously strays from the routine talking animal movie is where the subject of good and evil in the film is concerned. It is no secret that Diego (the sabertooth, voiced brilliantly by Denis Leary) is a vicious predator with little on his mind other than obtaining this baby for his pack for revenge purposes and, as an added bonus, tricking Manfred into walking into a trap and feeding his whole pack of tigers with his abundance of meat. This develops a wonderful situation in that we never know what is going to happen and who to trust, and even this involving story is intercut with things like the thrilling ice-slide scene (which mirrors the sheer thrills created by the door factory scene in Monster, Inc., arguably the best scene in the film), and blanketed by the breathtaking animation first introduced in a mainstream film with Toy Story in 1995.
There is, however, a rather unfortunate quality to the mixing of the characters here, in that it so effectively portrays the carnivores as the bad guys, the evil part of the necessary good and evil ingredients in order to have a story. Also like Cats & Dogs (which chose to impose the characteristic of evil onto one of the two breeds of rivals seemingly at random), this film chooses to present the carnivores as the evil ones, but at least the reasoning is apparent here. The sabertooth tigers are meat-eaters, they kill other animals for food (and talking animals at that!), so clearly they have to be presented as the antagonists. Never mind the fact that humans are much more vicious and violent predators than sabertooth tigers, right? Newsflash, vegetarians, if you only want to eat things that were never alive, I hope you can get used to a diet of sand and rocks, because that is just about all that's going to be on the menu.
Just kidding, I actually applaud people who make restrictions in their diets because of the things that go on in slaughterhouses. Killing animals for human food is one of the least supervised industries in the world by the animal rights groups, and these practices sicken me to no end (although have little to no impact on my own gleeful consumption of meat), but I hardly think this is an adequate reason to portray sabertooth tigers, who are doing nothing more than following their natural instincts, as evil because of their longing for such a large quantity of meat as Manfred would provide them.
The end of Ice Age is the point where the movie comes dangerously close to being overly sentimental and cheesy, given the tearful antics that go on when the baby is returned to the humans. Sid and Manfred give their teary goodbyes just as Diego staggers over the horizon (assuring us that he is not really dead), to do a little peek-a-boo at the baby and then give a little wave. This is cheesy crap, but the rest of the movie is good enough to allow for a little over-sentimentality like this.
The best things about Ice Age were things like the rearrangement of the food chain in the partnership that develops throughout the film, the sheer comedy involved in the squirrel's unending efforts to stow away acorns for a winter that is already here, and the new idea of where the English language may have come from (humans don't speak!!). Despite the ham-handed message of vegetarianism that permeates the film from beginning to end (which I dislike more for its blatant ham-handedness than its presence at all), Ice Age proudly carries the distinction of being one for the whole family and not just one that the producers want you to BELIEVE is one for the whole family, as was the case with Cats & Dogs. Enjoy it, and don't sit too close to the TV.