Ice Age: The Meltdown

Ice Age: The Meltdown (also known as Ice Age 2: The Meltdown or simply as Ice Age 2) is a 2006 American computer-animated comedy drama adventure film and a sequel to the 2002 computer-animated film Ice Age. It was produced by Blue Sky Studios for 20th Century Fox, and premiered in Belgium on March 1, 2006. It was eventually released in 70 countries, with the last release being in China, on June 9, 2006. It was directed by Carlos Saldanha, co-director of the original Ice Age, and the music is composed by Robots composer, John Powell.
Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary and Chris Wedge reprise their roles from the first film with Queen Latifah, Seann William Scott, Josh Peck and Will Arnett joining them voicing new characters.
The film is the second installment of the Ice Age series. The Meltdown received mixed critical reaction but was positively welcomed from audiences and the fans of the first film and was a box office success by earning over $660 million. A second sequel was released in 2009, followed by a third sequel in 2012. This was 20th Century Fox Animation's first sequel film since Bartok the Magnificent in 1999.
==Plot==
In the opening scene, Scrat climbs a glacier to bury his new acorn, but accidentally opens a hole in it, causing water to spurt out. The world of ice is slowly melting. The creatures of the Ice Age are all shown enjoying themselves on slides and pools made by the melting ice; among them the three protagonists of the first film: Manny, Sid, and Diego. Sid opens a small day camp, where none of the younger creatures take him seriously, nor do Manny and Diego, which leaves Sid seeking a daring deed. Fast Tony, a local con artist is claiming that the earth will flood and that the bark and reeds which he sells are needed to stay alive. Manny dismisses the idea, but is distracted when he sees that Sid will try to high dive from a giant waterfall; as Manny goes with Diego to the top of the waterfall to save Sid from his act of daredevilry, suddenly the ice under Diego's feet was breaking, causing him to bolt in fear, this also made Sid figure that Diego is afraid of the water. The herd figure that the pleasant weather has caused the ice shelves to melt, and it is kept from destroying the valley only by the glaciers, which have formed a dam.
A lone vulture warns the animals that a giant tree can act as a boat and save them if they make it to the end of the valley within three days time, and all soon set out to find it. As the animals begin their journey, Sid sings three songs to tease Manny about Mammoths being "extinct". During the evacuation, a glacier which contains two sea reptiles from the Mesozoic era, Cretaceous and Maelstrom, breaks off.
When Manny briefly is separated from them, Diego and Sid encounter two mischievous opossums named Crash and Eddie who drive them nuts by playing Whac-A-Mole with them. Manny is still depressed about being the last mammoth alive and his family, which has been killed in by humans, but is surprised when he encounters Ellie, a female mammoth who believes she is an opossum and Crash and Eddie's adoptive sister. Sid invites her to tag along with the group to escape the flood, and she brings her brothers. After a perilous ordeal with Cretaceous and Maelstrom while crossing a pond, Sid prompts Diego to encourage him to admit and face his fears - Diego insists that "fear is for prey", so Sid points out that Diego is behaving as if he is the water's prey. They discover an area which Ellie recalls as the place where she was adopted. She finally realizes she is a mammoth and also expresses her suspicions about how different she was from other opossums. Despite this bonding moment with Manny, she distances herself from him when he suggests "saving their species". Ellie and Manny ultimately make up when they must co-operate to save the group when the ground cracks under their feet. Sid is kidnapped by a tribe of mini-sloths who believe Sid to be a god. Sid lights a fire for them, and believes that he has finally found respect, but they plan to sacrifice him by tossing him into a volcano. Sid narrowly escapes. The next morning, Sid tells the others his experience but none are convinced. They find a field of hot geysers, which separate Manny, Sid, and Diego from Ellie and her brothers when they argue about which way to go through it.
When the flood comes, Manny saves Ellie from drowning as she is caught in a cave (due to falling rocks), while Diego overcomes his fear of water to save Sid. Cretaceous and Maelstrom arrive, but due to Manny's quick thinking, they are finished off by a rock which falls on them, killing them both. The other animals are at the mercy of the water currents. Meanwhile, Scrat climbs up the glacier and at the top sticks the acorn he has into the ice. This forms a crack in the glacier, which widens into a fissure, diverting the flood and saving the animals. Scrat is then washed away. In the final scene, a herd of mammoths shows up, but Manny and Ellie decide to remain together anyway, taking Sid, Diego, and the opossum brothers along. Sid encounters the mini-sloths again - they believe Sid stopped the flood and invite him to be their leader. Diego, surprised to see the mini-sloths are real, convinces Sid to stay with the others, reluctantly admitting that Sid is a vital part of their 'herd'.
The epilogue shows Scrat having a near death experience after falling into the fissure. He enters a heaven full of acorns. Suddenly, he finds himself torn away. He unhappily wakes up, having been saved by Sid through PRCP, who he proceeds to viciously attack.
==Voice cast==
* Ray Romano as Manfred "Manny"
* John Leguizamo as Sid
* Denis Leary as Diego
* Chris Wedge as Scrat
* Queen Latifah as Ellie, a fun loving and sarcastic woolly mammoth, who is under the delusion that she is a possum.
* Seann William Scott and Josh Peck as Crash and Eddie, two pranksters and meschievous opossums twin brothers and Ellie's adoptive brothers.
* Will Arnett as Lone Gunslinger Vulture, a sinister vulture that actually hopes that some animal will die during the migration so he and his friends can eat what's left of them.
* Jay Leno as Fast Tony, a con artist and selfish giant armadillo that tries to make profit of the upcoming flood by selling fake inventions to the animals of the valley. 
* Tom Fahn as Stu, a stupid and goofy Glyptodon that is Fast Tony's assistant.
* Alex Sullivan as James, a young aardvark.
* Alan Tudyk as Cholly, a flatulent chalicothere.
* Clea Lewis as Female Mini Sloth / Dung Beetle Mom.
===Additional Voices===
# Emily Anderson
# Jack Angel
# Shane Baumel
# Bob Bergen
# Claudia Besso
# Kyle J. Bogert
# Rodger Bumpass
# Paul Butcher
# Blanca Camacho
# John Cygan
# Jennifer Darling
# Olivia DeLaurentis
# Harrison Fahn
# Bill Farmer
# Crispin Freeman
# Spencer Lacey Ganus
# Jess Harnell
# Tim Kirkpatrick
# David H. Kramer
# Sherry Lynn
# Danny Mann
# Laura Marano
# Madeleine Martin
# Matthew P. McCarthy
# Mickie McGowan
# Laraine Newman
# Jan Rabson
# Zack Shada
# Thomas Sharkey
# Ross Simanteris
# Rachel Stand
# April Winter
==Reception==
Even though it received mixed reviews from film critics, the film was praised by audience for its story, the character development, humor, heart, characters, John Powell's musical score, screenplay, the climax and the improved animation. 
==Trivia==
* Seann William Scott, the voice of Crash, is also the voice of Skiff from Planet 51.
== Gallery ==
ICE AGE THE MELTDOWN.jpg
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