Ice Age - The Meltdown

Here’s another in my series of reviews of Children’s movies. This time, Ethan and I went to see Ice Age, The Meltdown. Ice Age 2 is the second movie by Blue Sky Productions (I think) under the Fox production company. Like the first Ice Age, it is a computer animated movie about three prehistoric animals who became a “herd” of their own.

This time around, the world is warming up and all of the animals live in a large bowl formed by an 80 foot high ice dam. They have to make it to the other end of the valley before the end of the week before the dam breaks and they all drown. Along the way, Manny, the mammoth, starts to believe that his species is extinct. That is, until he meets up with a mammoth (I forget her name) that thinks she is a possum. Her and her two “brothers” add hijinx to the film by injecting pop phrases and making fun of the other three. Anyway, the gist of the movie is about loss and getting past it. It’s kind of a deep subject for kids, but I think it is enjoyable enough for them to stay interested even they don’t really “get it.” You see, Manny lost his entire family (wife and child) to a group of hunters and he’s never really gotten past it. Now, faced with extinction, he has to try to get past his feelings of loss and try to start over with this new mammoth (played by Queen Latifah), but first he has to convince her that she is not a possum.

All in all I enjoyed this movie very much. I would say it is quite a bit better than Madagascar, but still not quite as good as Shrek or The Incredibles. Personally I liked Ice Age better than this outing, but Ethan tells me that “This one is way better than the first one.” I definitely recommend this movie to both kids and adults.