Latest Ice Age "Odyssey" Proves the Franchise Still Has Legs - to Some Degree

Rating: 8/10 (24 June 2013)

Ice Age 4 - Continental Drift" (hereafter IA4) is an ideal example of what I like to call "Cinematic Dissonance". I define Cinematic Dissonance as the sensation when, watching a movie, your brain is telling you "This is really silly and/or stupid!" but your emotions are telling you "I'm having a great time!". Therefore, I can understand and even somewhat agree with the 1- and 2-star reviewers of this movie who complain that IA4 is basically more of the hackneyed, predictable, improbable, and homogenized capers of Manny the Mammoth (Ray Romano) and company. And yet, I side with the 3- and 4-star reviewers who enjoyed IA4 as an energetic, dynamic, funny seagoing adventure with allusions to Homer's "The Odyssey" that somehow still reinforces the themes of family, adolescent angst, loyalty, self-sacrifice, and home.
With each succeeding "Ice Age" movie, logic and natural reality have been left further and further behind. For example, by now, to appreciate the franchise, you have to accept that Scrat the obsessed saber-toothed squirrel's acorn pursuit will lead to more and more global catastrophic changes. In IA4, he has caused the surprisingly fragile Pangea's fragmentation into the continents we know today. We also have to accept that Manny is obstinately determined to keep his now-teenaged daughter Peaches (Keke Palmer) safe, when actually male elephants hardly take part in raising offspring, and that Peaches' best friend is a mole/hedgehog ("molehog") hybrid named Louis. Of course, Peaches has also inherited her prehensile tail and tree-living abilities from her mother, Ellie (Queen Latifah). The only other complication in our gang's essentially stable lives is the sudden abandonment of feisty Granny Sloth (Wanda Sykes) to Sid's (John Leguizamo's) care by his fly-by-night family. Granny has a friend called "Precious", but it's certainly not a ring. Hey, these are familiar domestic dramas, but IA4 still makes them interesting.
But the continental shiftings and movements interrupt the drama and gradually separate Manny, Sid, Granny, and Diego the sensible sabertooth cat (Denis Leary) from the others. Set adrift on an iceberg, Manny and friends encounter another iceberg - a "pirate ship" commanded by a Gigantopithecus (according to Wikipedia) named Captain Gutt (Peter Dinklage) and his zoo crew - including a blubbery elephant seal, a rabbit, a kangaroo, and an able-bodied first-mate female Smilodon named Shira. So now the plot is established with several resolutions to be made: 1) Can Manny and his crew escape Captain Gutt's grasp? 2) Will Shira mutiny and change alliances? 3) Can Manny and his crew weather turbulent seas, fierce narwhals, and even (!) sirens to get back home, AND save a kidnapped Peaches and Ellie?, 4) Can Manny defeat Captain Gutt in battle? 5) Can klutzy Sid get along with his grandma and be a hero, 6) Can insecure Louis help save his friends, and finally 6) Is Precious real, or just Granny's hallucination? Oohwee! I think you know how all the above resolutions will play out. Even so, I enjoyed them because I felt that all of IA4's characters were cheerfully giving their utmost to entertain us and having a grand time doing so. Besides the vivacious characterizations, IA4 continues the breathtakingly solid and weighty photorealism of its backgrounds and animation. Most importantly, IA4 continues to resist the self-consciousness of acting in a madcap, surreal story. The characters believed in the story and told it well, and made me believe it, too.
P.S.: One other resolution - Scrat finds a treasure map that leads him to a legendary acorn paradise called "Scratlantis". Does Scrat find the acorn of his dreams? Wellll,.....
P.P.S.: By the way, Gigantopithecuses really did exist about 1 million years ago. They were huge apes over 10 feet tall. Therefore, it is quite plausible that Captain Gutt could fight and even toss around Manny.