all the charm and wit that made the first two "Ice Age" pictures so wonderful has withered away and what we're left with is an entirely forgettable third installment

Rating: 5/10 (17 November 2009)

Isn't it quite amusing that seven years ago, the creators of "Ice Age" declared that there would be no dinosaurs in their saga? In a way, that was false right from the start. Remember, there was a dinosaur frozen in ice in the first movie, two prehistoric marine animals let loose in the second, and now here we are, and a tyrannosaurus rex is stomping around having left a subterranean underground prehistoric world in search of her eggs. The idea of reusing the old underground prehistoric world and incorporating it with the Ice Age saga is enough evidence to tell that the filmmakers are running out of ideas. The animation is still top-notch, the voice-acting is great, and the intentions are still good, but the charm and wit and magic that made the first two movies so much fun has withered away and what we are left with is a cheap thirty-minute cartoon expanded into a feature-length movie. "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" is a movie made strictly for profit and not for entertainment. It's not really a bad movie, but unlike its two predecessors, it's completely forgettable.
In the third installment in this once wonderful series, Manny (Ray Romano) and Ellie (Queen Latifah) are expecting a baby. Sid, a little jealous and feeling left out, stumbles upon three dinosaurs eggs in a frozen underground cave and, being Sid, thinks he has what it takes to raise them. The eggs hatch into three baby dinosaurs and then, just as you'd expect, mama arrives, takes her brood and snatches up Sid as well. And then its up to Manny, Ellie, her possum brothers, and Diego to go and rescue him in an underground world where dinosaurs still live. As they search, they are guided by a cocky and pretentiously goofy possum who is like a cross between Captain Ahab and the explorer Frank Buck.
There is nothing wrong with the movie visually. But where it really counts, in the story and characters, it's crippled. The movie is composed of dialogue that is one hundred percent deliberately chirpy and ostentatious, with the filmmakers expecting you to believe that just because they're telling a joke, that you will laugh. The humor in this movie is the same kind you will find in any half-hour cartoon and maybe even a little less profound. Only the character of Buck, the possum, really contains the magic and wit that made the first two movies so much fun.
As for everybody else, they are either watered down or pushed a few too many steps ahead. For instance, I liked Manny when he was a moody mammoth, but I don't like him so much now that he's a happy, jolly guy like Santa Claus with fur and a trunk. The whole pregnancy subplot was just publicity and serves no purpose in the story. Crash and Eddie the possums are no longer funny—Buck has all the humorous moments. And Diego's place in the film has completely watered down into basically cameo quality. He has a lot of screen time, but very little character and impact. Again, he has a problem that's eating away at him, but unlike in the first two movies, where the subplot was worked into making sense, here it really just flickers up now and again and never is fully encompassed upon. And worst of all, Sid the sloth, who always acted stupid but was once very funny, has become so ostentatiously dumb that he condescends into becoming irritating for the audience as well as the other characters.
And what about Scrat, the saber-toothed squirrel after his acorn? Well, guess what? He's boring now as well. Because the filmmakers came up with the incredibly dreadful idea of having him only chasing his acorn half the time and spending the rest of his time ogling at a female squirrel.
Now the movie is saved from being a total disaster by the character of Buck, who was enthusiastically voiced and animated, but he's just a supporting character. What made the first two movies so much fun? Whole casts of good characters, effective moments of humor and wit, developed stories, and a certain level of charm. All of that is gone in "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs." This time the filmmakers decided to focus appeal strictly upon the very young members of the audience and forget all the techniques and imaginative works that made the first two films so enjoyable. In the end, "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" is, in a single word, forgettable. This should have been a straight-to-DVD production. It's not worth a theater ticket.