The animation was decent in its day (even if the character designs are mostly uninspired), and though it doesn’t look too impressive by today’s standard’s, it doesn’t look bad either. There are some fun action sequences (something the series is actually pretty consistent with), and even a couple of funny moments. You know you have too many characters when the movie gives two of the franchise’s three main characters such forced and obligatory side-stories. But while Manny has a budding relationship with Ellie, Sid gets a single scene’s worth of a plot in which he is kidnapped and nearly sacrificed by a tribe of mini-sloths, and Diego’s character is reduced to being defined by a fear of swimming. I’m fine with the story taking breaks to show Scrat’s antics, as his more cartoonish ventures always serve as a fun little detour to the main story. Similarly, the movie has so many main characters that it doesn’t really know what to do with most of them. There’s even a duo of prehistoric, recently thawed, sea-dwelling villains who are thrown into the mix to try to add some additional adversity, but their sporadic appearances and lack of voices mean they hardly have any presence. It kind of feels like a road trip movie with a misplaced sense of urgency. It’s a pretty thin plot, which kind of magnifies that this is an obligatory sequel and not a worthy one. Ellie and her brothers join the three mainstays, all the while the usual side-story takes place where Scrat the squirrel goes through outlandish situations just to claim an acorn. Meanwhile, Manny comes to worry that he may be the very last mammoth, until he comes across another mammoth named Ellie (Queen Latifah), who believes herself to be an opossum like her adopted brothers Crash and Eddie. But with the glaciers surrounding the valley melting they have to hightail it out of there before they’re swept away in a flood. The franchise’s heroes Manny the mammoth (Ray Ramano), Sid the sloth (John Leguizamo), and Diego the sabertooth tiger (Dennis Leary) have been living in a valley among other animals for some time. The Meltdown begins sometime after the events of the first movie, and global warming has started to take effect, melting most of the icy world the characters inhabit (though it’s all largely intact in the subsequent films). On the downside, it seems the series was already wrung dry were story is concerned. On the bright side, this 2006 sequel was released when the franchise still had some dignity. Read on if you want to revisit those moments in the Ice Age series that may not have been suitable for you as a kid, but which you can definitely appreciate now.Ice Age: The Meltdown was the second installment in the seemingly never ending Ice Age franchise, a series that has always been more successful than its quality should merit. I have to confess, those fart jokes will still catch me off guard and cause me to burst out laughing. Admittedly, the humor and heart of these movies is what compelled so many people into watching them, and I honestly can't blame them. With children as an audience, you would think the creators of Ice Age would have toned down the adult-styled humor. Most of these jokes went right over my head when I was younger, but you would be surprised at how many were easily understood. Morals of the movies aside, the Ice Age series was notorious for including pretty raunchy jokes. No matter if your family consisted of the dumbest sloth, the most sarcastic mammoth, or the scariest of saber-toothed tigers, being part of a unit greater than yourself was meant to be valued. But looking past the crass humor, Ice Age reinforced the vital lesson about the importance of family. Was a fart joke really all it took to get me to laugh? The answer is yes, yes, it really was. Looking back on the Ice Age movies, I sometimes wonder at how my younger self could have such little sensibility when it came to humor.
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