Ice cold entertainment

Rating: 8/10 (20 July 2009)

I instantly regretted having gone to see this with my nephew. It all seemed to be heading straight to Overlylineardevelopmentsville: the old team of Mannie (the mammoth), Sid (the sloth) and Diego (the sabre-toothed tiger, which are not real tigers, by the way) is split up because Mannie has gone square and founded a family. Sid then decides to do likewise and adopts three eggs, which gets him into all sorts of hilariously predictable scrapes ... but after about 10 minutes the story picks up speed, stops being anal about plot development and promoting family values, and just delivers punch after punch. You see, underneath the ice, our three friends discover a lost world where slapstick and fart jokes reign king! Overall, a very successful third episode from the Ice Age venture (and the umpteenth instalment of Arthur Conan Doyle's Lost World plot). The lost world is beautifully done, and I especially liked the new character of Buck (voiced by Simon Pegg), a hyperactive weasel who compliments the often very staid characters of Manni, Diego and Sid nicely.
And Scrat the nut-fancying rodent finally finds happiness -- and loses it again ...