For kids only I guess.

Rating: 5/10 (13 July 2012)

Man, I hadn't even realized that I am two movies behind in this series. As it turns out, I have only seen the first "Ice Age" movie and remember it being a simple but yet very warm and entertaining animated movie, that I truly liked watching. Guess a lot has happened in and to the series in between and I got a totally different vibe from this movie, which was not a very positive one, I should say.
You could definitely say that this movie is mostly being orientated towards young children. So you see lots of jumping around and characters stumbling and falling from high cliffs and unfortunately the movie doesn't become any more creative or more clever than that. The written visuals jokes and dialog aren't being all that funny or clever and original. So really, while kids might still like watching this movie, the adults accompanying them most likely won't have the best time. But hey, it apparently is mostly being a kids movie, so I won't hold that against the movie too much. It still serves its purpose but it remains such a big shame that there really isn't being anything truly creative or original about this movie.
One of the other things that annoyed me about the comedy of this movie was that it kept referencing modern stuff, while this clearly is a movie that is set in ice age. I know, I shouldn't take it all so seriously and I know it's just a movie and it's all for laughs and giggles but I just couldn't help but to be annoyed by it. Perhaps I have just seen too many animated movies that keep on doing this sort of stuff. Again, if only the movie was a bit more creative and original with some of its stuff, it would had made this such a better and far more pleasant watch.
The movie definitely has far too many different characters in it. What the movie could had used was one good and clear main character but instead we now have a whole bunch of them, constantly competing for screen time. And the movie just keeps on introducing new characters! The movie never manages to find a right balance between all of its different characters and their separate story lines.
And it also really doesn't have a very strong villain in it either. As great as Peter Dinklage is, he just isn't a very good villain, since he doesn't really seem to have a good motivation or a devious plan to let him take over the world or destroy it, or anything like that. He is just being evil for the sake of being evil.
And of course there is being an obligatory love story, that really doesn't work out at all and simply should had been left out of the movie. That way we also wouldn't had had Jennifer Lopez in this movie! I don't know what it is but I'm completely fed up with hearing Jennifer Lopez' voice, that just isn't made for acting roles.
Can't say many bad things about the animation. It's funny, I still mostly have the first movie in my mind, which most definitely wasn't the best looking animated movie. This movie however is just as good looking as any other modern computer animated movie. It's not better looking than any other modern genre movie but also most definitely not any worse.
But really, the more I am thinking about this movie, the less I am liking it. I was actually at first going to rate it a 6 because I thought that it served it's purpose well enough, as a kids movie. However, there is just no excuse for the lack of true creativity and originality and we really shouldn't let these type of movies get away with that! Animated movies always need to keep pushing the envelope, not just animation-wise, or else it becomes just another genre that has reached its peak and is on its way down. This movie just feels like lazy filmmaking and just a way to cash in some more on a successful franchise and to sell even some more new toys and other merchandise. I say; no more! Unless they start coming up with something truly great, fun and original again.
5/10
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