cold... in more ways than one.

Rating: 3/10 (16 March 2002)

Who decided that characters getting pummeled, squished, slammed, zapped, whacked, and impaled is funny? Yet, as I cringed while Scrat and Sid were forced to endure one indignity after another, the kids and parents around me were laughing their butts off. Somehow, this didn't surprise me.
Although it implied some of the violence and death, I found "Ice Age" to be unusually cruel. I was especially disturbed by the dodo bird sequence. It was not only historically inaccurate, it was vicious. Good thing they've been extinct since 1681, otherwise, Fox would be shilling out mucho dinero to the dodos and their lawyers. And, the watermelon concern also has grounds for a big-time lawsuit as well.
Shamelessly manipulative and paint-by-the-numbers, it's no better than Disney's recent offerings. Manfred's story was an obvious play for our sympathies, but he's not likable to begin with, so it was hard to empathize with him.
My hopes were raised when Diego comments that the baby will become a hunter and he might, someday, hunt them! But the film makers didn't have the guts to explore the moral and ethical questions just raised, especially in light of Manfred's story. It reminded me of the soldiers in "Saving Private Ryan" discussing the stupidity of 8 guys risking their lives to save one then the issue being dropped: it was patronizing and insulting.
And why did they add on that coda? Talk about cold! Hadn't Scrat suffered enough? Leave the poor thing (and his acorn) alone!