Iced-over storyline and action

Rating: 5/10 (21 June 2009)

James Bond, Harry Potter, and Star Wars notwithstanding, there are not too many movie franchises that aren't gasping for breath by the third entry. The latest evidence is the animated comedy "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs."
Like the "Shrek" movies, the "Ice Age" stories began modestly but have now caved under the weight of too many characters. No. 3 brings back the wooly mammoth Manny (voiced by Ray Romano); his significant other Ellie (Queen Latifah); Diego (Denis Leary), the macho tiger; the hapless sloth Sid (John Leguizamo); and the wordless squirrel Scrat (Chris Wedge).
The first few scenes are ominously discouraging. Ellie's is shown to be "with child," and Diego is starting to feel his age. So we get a lot of touchy-feely dialogue about mortality and sharing your emotions â€“ not the kind of talk you're eager to receive from a couple of wooly mammoths.
These characters have worn their more endearing traits down to a nub. Sid was always meant to irritate his on-screen friends, but now he gets under our skin as well. Ray Romano, in what was once his only credible movie role, makes Manny as grating as his "Everybody Loves Raymond" persona was. And if you've seen Denis Leary on his TV series "Rescue Me," you know that the last emotion he should be asked to display is sensitivity.
As if just giving enough screen time to each returnee wasn't enough to intimidate the movie makers, they added an underground world of dinosaurs, so the whole gang can get chased around and scream as if they're in Jurassic Park.
Then they get a travel guide, in the form of a macho weasel named Buck (Simon Pegg), so that the movie can score a few "Apocalypse Now" jokes.
Who's supposed to care about any of this guff? Cartoony as they were, the first two movies made you feel as though something was as stake for these creatures. Now they've turned into stand-up comics, delivering little zingers before they lumber off-screen. The movie alternates between these puny jokes and drawn-out scenes of frantic action, neither of which adequately carry the story or its many subplots.
Finally, it must be noted that the movie is in 3D, with the usual cheesy glasses provided at each screening. If you're a fan of this format, ignore my carping. But I share critic Roger Ebert's view that if animation is done plausibly enough, a viewer shouldn't require special glasses to be dazzled by it. Here, 3D is just another prominent distraction.