Great Animation, Great Cast, what happened to the story?

Rating: 7/10 (23 January 2003)

SPOILERS!
A+ for animation, the humans looked human, loved the look and feel.

However, if you want a story about a mis-understood giant and an annoying small sidekick, you would be better off watching _Shrek (2001)_. Everytime I would see a scene that was suppposed to be funny, I would think "This is just like Shrek, only, different somehow, oh yes, not as funny". The one true original scene was the ice cave sequence. Everything else was a stereotypical mishmash of animation cliches. Oh look, the psuedo-villian has a last-second change of heart (Emperor's New Groove). Oh look, a lake of lava, never seen that before (Shrek). Oh look, creatures stuck with a baby and hilarious antics ensue (Monsters Inc).
Seems like the animators had some cool technology to show off and simply cut and paste a plot together. I mean, don't get me wrong, there are broad elements common to almost all movies/stories, however, it seemed that Ice Age went out of its way to simply reuse other bits of movies, without giving it a personal touch/ new spin. What a shame. Great cast though.