passable sequel

Rating: 6/10 (11 March 2007)

"Ice Age: The Meltdown" is a pleasant, if somewhat lackadaisical, follow-up to the animated hit, "Ice Age," from 2002. In a plot vaguely reminiscent of "Dinosaurs," a group of prehistoric animals flees to higher ground when a melting glacier caused by global warming threatens to flood the valley in which they live. The returning characters include Manfred, the woolly mammoth; Diego, the saber-tooth tiger; and Sid, the wisecracking sloth. New to the cast is Ellie, a female mammoth who has somehow come to think that she is, in reality, a possum, and who provides a romantic interest for the generally stoic Manfred. Ray Romano, Denis Leary, John Leguizamo and Queen Latifah provide the voices for these characters.
Oddly, despite the extreme urgency of the situation, the animals spend more of their time just moseying along - falling in love and discussing the issues of the day - than squaring off against the various dangers that confront them. Still, there are enough straightforward action scenes to keep the young ones captivated and enough double entendres and "in" joke pop culture references to keep the older folk entertained as well. As with most sequels, "Ice Age: The Meltdown" lacks the freshness of the original, but the animation has a clean, uncluttered look that fits well with the starkness of the setting. The one bona fide musical sequence is an amusing ode to the glories of feasting on prey, done to the tune "Food, Glorious Food" from "Oliver!" As animated movies go, "The Meltdown" is nothing to write home about, but it makes for passable viewing even if you aren't exactly its target audience.