Speaking of Ice Ages, this is often glacial; what was quite charming has evolved into a bit of a carefree slog in which we cannot get involved.

Rating: 5/10 (11 December 2011)

A thaw is the chief threat to the lead characters in Ice Age: The Meltdown, the unfunny sequel to an original film from four years earlier which transported furry, anthropomorphic animated creatures of a bygone century back to a time when ice and snow blanketed the world and the issue of evolution seemingly didn't exist. Where there is a literal thaw within that of the film, there is a parallel one of exterior nature seeing the whole idea of these somewhat likable little characters and their adventures coming to wear rather thin – the film striking us as an exercise in looking to feed off recent glories by churning out sequels and sit on a soap box in the process. The error of the film's ways is in its removing of everything that made 2002's Ice Age fun; primarily, its character dynamics and its hybridising of an era set thousands and thousands of years ago with the modern-day. Here and now, there is very little wit to "Meltdown"; a film about characters making this huge trek across snowy wildernesses as this impending item of doom and destruction threatens them, and yet rarely feeling like anybody is actually going anywhere at all. Toss in a really meekly handled global warming message, designed to attune the kids to such an issue, but coming off as heavy handled; some annoying supporting characters and the fact that all of Ice Age's own ingenuity and charm has been stripped away from this project, and you have a fairly lacklustre computer animation which goes on for too long without engaging.
The film begins with its characters in a pleasant enough place: a neat little Utopia built upon the icy plains of whatever stretch of land this is further-still tucked away in a makeshift corner which sports all you need to generally be able to relax in life. Located therein is Sid the sloth, voiced again by that of John Leguizamo whom, as it was in the first, provides Sid with the lispy and goofy verbal tones required to have us easily take to him. He runs what can only be described as a summer camp; a place for the tots of this world to come and play and swim and listen to stories told by that of the supervisors. Also there are Diego (Leary) and Manfred (Romano); Diego being the sabre-tooth tiger whose plight in the first it was which made him change from being the cold-hearted predator killer and into, well, someone whom still eats meat, we assume, but never his good friends the sloth or the mammoth. Manfred is that mammoth, and after some brief beginnings which feign as if to set up a different movie entirely more broadly linked to Sid's inability to communicate with the opposite sex; failure to establish order as the governing force of his workplace and the still-lacklustre levels of respect he has from his peers, we veer off and away down a route encompassing Manfred and his problems.
But that comes a little later. First, there is a vulture and the ultimatum he offers to those located within this little zone. Principally, they all have three days to pack up and ship out, for that large cliff face-come-glacier behind them acting as a shield to anything and everything beyond it is beginning to melt out of a collective warming. The vulture warns them because he doesn't like wet food; their trek across the planet to find somewhere safer and away from the soon-to-be incoming wave of has-been ice block a journey he and his buddies hope will see them perish. Premise in mind, and a rounded deadline of three days one would assume that crafty vulture has specifically waited to unload unto them, the animals take the plunge and head off; thus kicking into gear one of the more sporadic and less involving animated pieces from recent years.
Granted, there is something funny about a descendant from a squirrel named Scrat constantly chasing a nut – the likes of which rely on the physicality of the situation and the character's own flexibility. We are aware he cannot ever obtain the nut and the fact he often falls flat on his face in trying to retrieve it is second to how he goes about doing it. The pleasure one derives, although really ought not, from these skits leaves the rest of the film as unenjoyable as it is; a series of interludes relying on escapes from precarious situations and situational comedic content involving characters voiced by the likes of Queen Latifah (anybody who calls themselves "Queen" Latifah is practically asking to be ignored) to see it home. Examples of the magisterial levels of wit buried within Gerry Swallow and Peter Gaulke's screenplay arrive in the form of a whole pack of vultures doing an Oliver Twist number as well as a routine involving eccentric, pint-sized would-be desert island tribal creatures doing dances and such evoking the Eric Darnell movie from barely a year previously, in Madagascar.
The film becomes Manfred's, and an internal/existential crisis through which he journeys to do with whether there is much point to carrying on if he is the sole mammoth left. Of course it turns out he isn't, but for time-limit's sake, it'll take some time to convince this newfound mammoth that they are what Manfred tells them they are – cue some rather risqué, and often out of place, gags about first dates and how far down the line heterosexual relationships need to be before whatever. The first Ice Age was a difficult film to dislike, "The Meltdown" is a very easy film to not take to at all; hollow praise aside that is "does" whatever "job" it needs to in order to quench entertainment driven thirsts of families encompassing that of young children, this first Ice Age sequel is just disappointing.