Ice Age Review
by Dragan Antulov (dragan DOT antulov AT st DOT tel DOT hr)December 16th, 2002
ICE AGE (2002)
A Film Review
While doomsday prophets warn us about impending horrors of global warming, those familiar with history are somewhat more relaxed. This is not the first time that planet Earth got significantly warmer; some thousand years ago Viking colonists used the words like "Green Land" to describe the island which is now covered by permafrost. Around 1300 A.D. the climate suddenly switched and once thriving Grenland colony simply vanished under the ice, while the continent of Europe suffered floods, storms, crop failures and all sorts of disasters that resulted in mass
famine. However, this global catastrophe, nicknamed "mini-ice age" by historians, can never measure with real thing - ice age that had struck this planet some 20,000 years ago. Not only the climate, but also the look of the Earth was changed - moving glaciers had changed landscapes, ocean levels dropped and all that resulted with weird effects on human evolution and mostly disastrous effects for the rest of Earth's fauna. Some scientists claim that today's global warning is just a precursor for another ice age. However, all those who want to prepare for such emergency should find better reference material than ICE AGE, 2002 animated feature directed by Chris Wedge.
The plot begins some 20,000 years ago when the glaciers start to move southwards, which is a signal for animals to start mass exodus southwards and thus evade the new ice age. Sid (voice by John Leguizamo) is a sloth who was left behind by his cousins and now must fend for himself in the increasingly hostile environment. Sid thinks that he found solution for this problems comes in the form of Manfred (voice by Ray Romano), wolly mammoth who is supposed to protect him. Manfred, however, doesn't like Sid and wants to be left alone. Before they are able to settle the issue, fate intervenes in the form of human baby whose mother had jumped to the river in order to escape from sabre-toothed tigers. After successful rescue, Manfred and Sid decide to find the human tribe and return the baby to the father. However, in order to locate humans they need the assistance of expert tracker and that assistance comes in the form of Diego (voice by Dennis Leary), sabre-toothed tigers whose motives aren't exactly altruistic. Before the truth about Diego comes out, unusual trio would face many obstacles on their path.
From the very beginning ICE AGE shows somewhat unusual structure for animated blockbuster. It seems that the two distinct styles of animated films were mixed. On one hand we have classic Disney-like plot with anthropomorphic animal characters and traditional beginning, middle and the end. This plot is accompanied with the story of Scrat (voice by Chris Wedge), sabre-toothed squirrel involved in the epic Sisyphus-like struggle with an acorn that refuses to be buried in the ground - this segment belongs to the tradition of Chuck Jones and Road Runner movies. The combination of two is not the most fortunate - Scrat's subplot often looks like an artificial attempt to artificially bring some comic relief to the main story. The main story, despite being light- hearted at the surface, actually needs more humour, and that is not adequately provided by script and dialogue. ICE AGE, although it has the obligatory happy ending and positive message for the younger viewers, deals with some not very pleasant truths about the past, present and possible future of this planet. Those who watched BBC documentaries about prehistoric beasts would notice that almost every animal featured in this film (with the exception of sloth) went extinct, and ICE AGE gives some not so implicit hints that the responsibility for that tragedy lies within humans. At times, scriptwriters go too far with the extinction theme, especially in the scene that features army of suicidal dodos - not particularly funny scene that would probably be unbearable for any environmentalist.
Yet, despite all those problems with the form and content, ICE AGE is very pleasant viewing experience. Armed with the CGI technology, Chris Wedge creates memorable images and quickly brings the audience to the prehistoric world that is obviously artificial yet in some ways more real than the real world. The animal characters look superb, and the voices are provided by actors who do their best to make them as unrecognisable as possible. John Leguizamo is quite hilarious as always-talking sloth, Ray Romano is also effective as mammoth, while Leary in many ways sounds like Michael Douglas. For Goran Visnjic, actor who gave voice to Soto, evil leader of sabre-tooth tigers pack, ICE AGE represents a remarkable achievement - Croatian-born star of ER has managed to overcome his accent and thus provide himself with the wider variety of Hollywood roles. All in all, ICE AGE owes more of its stunning commercial success to the publicity machine than its own quality, but the quality is of such nature that the most people who succumb to hype wouldn't mind.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
Review written on December 15th 2002
Dragan Antulov a.k.a. Drax
http://film.purger.com - Filmske recenzije na hrvatskom/Movie Reviews in Croatian
http://www.purger.com/users/drax/reviews.htm - Movie Reviews in English http://www.ofcs.org - Online Film Critics Society
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