Scratatouille Ice Ice Baby steals the show!

Rating: 8/10 (15 July 2009)

Scrat the Squirrel is on the dawn of finally hitting the utopia of Squirrelism by capturing the beloved acorn. That is until his whirling squirling hormones get the worst of him and he falls for a sabre-toothed female squirrel named Scratte; who evidently wants a piece of that herself. Piece being Scrat or the Acorn? OK, so that was not the best way to break the ice in my review of "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs". What do you expect? I first wrote it in "scrat paper". This third installment of the infamous Ice herd franchise does have numerous comedic dawning moments that come mostly in the form of the aforementioned Scrat adventures. The male procrastinating complexities of choosing love or gratification are in a way symbolized in Scrat's dilemma of deciding between Scatte's love or the tempting acorn. OK, that was way too "acorny" and unforgivably deep! Sorry, it is just that I am still living in the Pun Age, and this is the Dawn of the Punasours. OK, I will stop. All punning aside, Scrat once again shows that he is the superstar of the Ice Age installment. Herd, do not misunderstand! Heard me? Not to take anything away from your stellar lineup including the mammoth stars Manny and Ellie, the cerebrally-challenged sloth Sid, the feisty sabre-tooth tiger Diego, and the screwy possums Eddie & Crash. It is just that Scrat rocked the Ice Age House once more! In this Ice Age narrative- Ellie is pregnant carrying Manny's little mammoth baby, Sid wants to be a dad of his own so he steals three dinosaur eggs, and an aging & unmotivated Diego is trying to recapture the "eye of the tiger". Through some Sid-witted disasters, the herd end up in a dinosaur underworld chased by a gargantuan Dino mom who wants her triplets back from Sid, and a even more grandiose dinosaur named Rudy who is just plain rude. The herd befriends a one-eye weasel named Buck who lives in the underworld and ends up being their key to escape. But does the herd end up getting a bang out of their Buck? I am going to have to pass the Buck on this one, and let you figure it out yourself. Some critics have given "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" a cold-hearted reception and have ridiculed Co-directors Carlos Saldanha and Mike Thurmeier for not bringing more originality to the story. They do have some valid arguments with those theories, but the hotness of the "Ice Age" movies has never been the story, it has been the characters. And I think that these herd of characters were once again marvelous and should not be inserted in the endangered movies franchise list. Chill out til dawn with "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs". I am scratting out of here! **** Good