enjoyable and witty but poor story

Rating: 4/10 (1 April 2006)

'Ice Age 2: The Meltdown' makes a good sequel, although no surprise that it is not as good as the original. The same characters are back, including the squirrel, and some new characters are introduced in the form of a comedic opposum duo and a naive wooly mammoth that thinks she is an opposum. The animals band together to escape from being drowned from the melting ice, and in this film, the enemies are less apparent: vultures waiting for them to die and two shark-like creatures that live in the water.
This film does have several hilarious moments and one-liners. However, the story is very weak. The film also goes quite slowly in some places but does not leave enough time for others. For example, after the small group of characters is first confronted with the under-water creature, they appear to be stuck in the lake of melted water without a way to get across because of the disturbances caused by the enemy. After this action, it cut directly to another scene. In general, there were a few areas that could have been cut or edited more because they moved quite slowly, and they did not add that much to the story. There was also a general good balance between the comedy and the story. The opposum duo could have been really annoying if they had done much more with them. That said, the characterization was done as well as it was in the first film.
The animation had improved from the first film. I was amazed that the fur looked like fur, and the fur actually looked wet. The underwater scenes looked believable as well as the water. The burst of water from the ice dam looked pretty good as well, and I am sure that it took a long time to get that to look right.
The lack of a good story brings this film down a bit, but the comedy makes up for it. It's still a film that children will enjoy, although it does not hold the same charm as the first film and is less memorable. I give it about an average score because it did make me laugh, it was enjoyable, and the animation was good, but it lacked a good story.