Better as a trilogy...#4 was a disappointment

Rating: 4/10 (21 July 2012)

I just love the ice age series, they were funny, classic, and all around family fun. Number 4 was indeed funny but an awful sequel to the franchise. Ill explain why.
If you had watched Ice Age 1 thru 3 you can tell how well the character development was, i mean everybody like Manny and the herd was in every single scene throughout those movies. And the story plots were well organized and very entertaining.
Ice Age 4 was nothing but a bunch of side stories crammed into a short film, totally confusing! The movie had so many stories and so many new characters, it being that way...hardly anybody was shown like Crash and Eddie well they were only in three scenes. And Ellie wasn't in the movie much either. Nor was Shira and Diego loving each other.. shocking!
Lets not forget about the plot, there were a lot of different stories rather than the main plot.... Peaches love interest, Manny dealing with her teenage life, continental drift, Louis loving peaches, Ethan and his friends against Louis, teenage drama, and last but not least Diego's lover shira. BTW Shira and the pirates didn't show up till halfway through the film. All of these stories in a 90 min film was like trying to put twenty pounds of potatoes into a ten pound bag.
This movie was supposed to be big about pirates and a lover for Diego, well it was bad enough that Shira and Diego didn't actually show love for each other until most of the movie was over, what a drag that was.
Honestly, I think the fourth would have been better if Buck and Scratte were in it more if they had joined the herd from film 3 because Buck and Scratte hit the spotlight instead of these new teenage mammoths and a geeky mole hog. Better yet, if they had stop at 3 and not make a fourth. (Buck and Scratte did make a cameo role in Ice Age 4)
With that being said, All the new characters in this film as one big family with Manny, this herd will never be the same again!