Chix Chat on Film Review: Ice Age with increased star power..

Rating: 6/10 (15 July 2012)

Ice Age Continental Drift is the fourth film in this animated series that follows the migration of a group of unlikely friends across continents as their lives evolve. Manny (Ray Romano) and Ellie (Queen Latifah) now have to contend with a teenage Peaches (Keke Palmer) and just about everything surrounding that relationship and her growth was so cliché. Any and every teenage coming of age story ever written, acted out in a play or on screen was covered in one-liners like 'just be yourself', which we know isn't possible since teenagers typically don't know who they are. This story introduced a number of new characters which most of which we will likely see in the next installment. With the whole teenage scenario came Ethan (Drake) the object of Peaches affection. We finally get a glimpse into the sloth family and have a better understanding of the reason Sid's (John Leguizamo) a sloth apart, this story brought another new character his Granny (Wanda Sykes). As things get adventurous we encounter another group of unlikely companions led by Captain Gutt (Peter Dinklage) a primate who is just mean for no apparent reason, but his crew included Shira (Jennifer Lopez), who comes with the best storyline. My favorite character of them all for whatever reason is and has always been Diego (Dennis Leary) so to see in the trailers that a female saber is now in the picture led me to hope that he would finally meet his match. As always the animation looks great, even though the stories are very elementary. I tried to stay interested by calling upon my inner child during the viewing but at one point almost dozed off. This could have something to do with just returning home from a Mississippi Gulf vacation that included late nights, but I digress. This film targets young children and during the screening the physical comedy garnered the desired reaction, laughter. There was an entire Ewok adventure that caused some ooos for cuteness, and there was a slightly frightening siren segment that caused some ahhs. The whole opening segment featuring Scrat chasing that nut was so absurd that I wanted to leave but figured that I should stay since those episodes would just be sprinkled throughout the film and are not the entirety of the story. I was not impressed by much of anything in this film, but as a summer release for kids and based on the sounds in the theater it clearly worked for them, for that reason I give it an amber light.