Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012)

Ice Age: Continental Drift is the fourth installment in the Ice Age series, which was started a decade ago by FOX when they tried their hand at animation again after Titan A.E. became a box office bomb. The series follows a group of quite different prehistoric animals and the plot that it follows has been so far a formulaic "go from point A to B" story.

As the title suggests, Ice Age 4's plot revolves around the separation of continents. The herd is separated and while the original trio goes into an adventure overseas, the "half opossum, half mammoth" family tries to reach a rock bridge to meet up there. The film's animation is fantastic (you could hardly say a mainstream animated movie doesn't have terrific CGI) and backgrounds and water effects are beautiful, but the movie's storytelling is too fast paced and there are too many characters for them to develop while the movie lasts.

If the series is too formulaic what is the appeal of this movie? For anyone who has seen the whole series, you'll be happy to know Diego meets a female saber-tooth on the way and Sid is reunited with his sloth family. Amongst the new characters are a crew of pirates that capture the trio while they explore the ocean and become the main antagonists of the film.

The movie is overall quite worth it to watch with your family, but even the third one (which I didn't like a lot) had a better paced storytelling. New characters, in my opinion, don't really display a lot of personality traits other than Granny Sloth, but it is quite the enjoyable flick I would watch a few times on theaters.

The 3D, by the way, is not really worth it and the movie doesn't make use of it correctly. There were some moments when the background looked it was over the characters and that almost gave me a head ache. If you're taking your family to watch the movie don't waste your money on 3D.

Fmovies: Fantastic film! As a fan of the series, i was a bit skeptical that they were taking it too far however, if this film is any indication, the series is as strong as ever! You feel comfortable returning to the characters for another adventure and i don't see fans of the series being disappointed. The film is fast and fun and carries excellent messages of the importance of family and the importance of being yourself. A bunch of new characters freshen up the film, with a band of pirates, including a love interest for Diego and Sid is accompanied by his grandmother who is humorously oblivious to the dangerous situations the characters get into. Scrat also gets plenty of time chasing his elusive acorn, with the footage that was released as part of advertisements (Scrat's Continental Crack-Up)comprising in the film. However, there is also a hilarious scene at the end where he finally reaches the treasure island that the map on the acorn (seen in the advertisements) leads to.

A great, fun, family film that boasts crisp and detailed animation that actually makes great use of 3D. Definitely recommended!

*The short film that precedes the film, 'The Longest Daycare'- a Simpsons short, is a pleasant addition to the main film. It is a silent short that features Maggie Simpson and Baby Gerald, where Maggie tries to save a butterfly from the daycare from the clutches of the baby. It is clever and fun and it is great to see more films having original shorts like Pixar's fantastic ones.

Question: How many top entertainers does it take to make an animated film? Answer: Apparently a whole slew of them. I guess the directors of this film thought that the more celebrities, the better the film would be. Not!! But I guess it did make for a pretty decent paycheck. Compared to other animated films of the summer, this one lacks in originality and freshness. I think the lessons that were trying to be conveyed in this film was a little too complicated for the very young crowd that was in the theater with me. The parts of the film that got the most laughs were every time the spotlight was put on Scrat (Chris Wedge). Even in the Ice Age predecessors, he was always the funniest. Maybe it is time for Scrat to get his own film. The young audience did not need dialog they just wanted to laugh. The other character that drew a lot of giggles was Sid (John Leguizamo). Sid along with Granny (Wanda Sykes) was a comedic match made in heaven. I saw an interview that Wanda did and initially she wanted to change her voice to sound older, but the director told her that her voice was perfect for the part. I think that she got a chuckle out of that. I do want to mention Peter Dinklage (Captain Gutt). He seems to be getting a lot of attention since he won a SAG and an Oscar for his portrayal of Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones. I have to say that by the end of the film I grew a little weary of Captain Gutt. He was really starting to get on my last nerve. Peaches (Keke Palmer) was a typical teenager that had to deal with peer pressure, parental rules and misguided decision making. The hate/love relationship that built between Diego (Denis Leary) and Shira (Jennifer Lopez) did manage to give the film a little extra punch, but not much. The film wasn't all bad. There were a few laughs; however this franchise has been saturated. I definitely think that it is time to put this one to bed. I think that very young viewers will appreciate the animation and maybe pre-teens will get the message, but this film was not designed to do both. All that being said, I am going to have to give this film a mammoth amber light.

Ice Age: Continental Drift fmovies. As with most sequels, the quality of the Ice Age movies is definitely regressing. I've enjoyed the others in the series (well, actually, I haven't seen The Meltdown, but I've seen the original and Dawn of the Dinosaurs) but I found Continental Drift to be disappointing in comparison. The animation is good as always, but there's too much in this that's too similar to what we've seen before (and, frankly, Scrat the sabre-toothed squirrel is getting tired and boring; same sub-plot every single time.)

In Continental Drift the original content came across to me as silly and overdone. As the land begins to drift apart (quite suddenly) Manny, Sid and Diego are trapped on a floating block of ice, desperately trying to get back to their "herd." Then they spend basically the entire movie fighting a gang of pirates led by a primate named Captain Gutt. This battle goes on and on and on. It makes for a movie that's a little bit (well, a lot) more violent than the other Ice Age movies and while there are some humorous moments (largely revolving around Sid's grandma) it didn't seem to me to have the fun of the other movies in the series that I've seen.

In fairness, my daughter's 8. She says she liked it. I can't disagree with that, so if the target audience is kids, then this is OK. It's just that the previous Ice Age movies seemed to have something for people of all ages to enjoy. This one was lacking that. (4/10)

I loved Ice Age the first one to death when I first watched it. I own it and every once and awhile I go to my DVD cupboard and pick it up and watch it. I disliked the sequel, Ice Age: Meltdown. The second sequel i hated too. They added new characters and I missed the chemistry and the funny lines that happened between just Sid the sloth, Manny and Diego the sabre tooth tiger. They added new characters which were sometimes funny but I missed the same three from the first one. In this third sequel the team must have realized this by splitting Sid, Manny and Diego with Sid's funny, odd grandma sloth away from the others on a race to get back to the herd and to get rid of these pirates. The pirates are entertaining as ever and very funny, the monkey played by Peter Dinklage is really good and the main plot flies along at a terrific pace. The jokes are fresh (most of them) and funny and you can't help liking this film. The side plots can get a bit cliché but I ignored them.

I have always liked the Ice Age series up to the third one. In fact, this is the first time that I thought I would watch it in theater rather than getting a DVD later. The 3D was spectacular in terms of visual appearance, but I would not rate it as good as the previous Ice Age movies.

The plot during this adventure is short and simple. There's no surprises, and everything is pretty much along the line of a typical friendship/family/hero type story. The whole story took place in 3, 4 "in-movie" days, much shorter than the previous ones which had a constant string of events. By the end of this movie, I couldn't believe the story's over. Not a lot happened before the villains are apprehended and the world returns to peace and harmony, as in any of the Ice Age movies. However, this probably means their target audience are younger than the ones before. I guess this is the biggest drag down for fans who have been watching since the first one.

They also did a sub-par job in the music. Despite having no improvement in quality, they recycled music from the second movie in the series, "the Meltdown". I bought the soundtracks after watching that movie thinking it was spectacular. After listening to it for years now, I could virtually name the tracks as they come up in the Continental Drift. From the title sequence to the Ending, pretty much everything without a vocal voice was identical to something I've heard before. It feels like they just copied and pasted from before - The soundtracks are awesome, but when it's used once too many, it just doesn't have the same impact anymore.

I still gave this movie a 6 because of, well, what Fox and Blue Sky has always been best at. The vivid colors and the "just right" graphical presentation is sure a feast on the eyes. And don't forget about Scrat, who's never involved but just somehow miraculously leads the story. This movie is definitely great for fun, there are many (supposedly deliberate) punch lines. Although some puns fail when I go "huh? that's lame", I can feel that they are trying to make it as funny as possible. I'd say that they are making this movie more like a feature-length, high quality TV cartoon special rather than a real theatrical movie. There's just not that much thrill to it.

The addition of the new characters seems only to provide a villain to the storyline. There doesn't seem to be much careful consideration - from what I see, it's perfectly fine to replace any of them with another animal or personality and the story stays valid. The characters' specialties just do not come together and contribute to the story, another reason why it feels like the story was written without the context of the movie. Not even the prolonged characters like Manny, Diego, Sid and Peaches.

Bottom line: This movie is mediocre. It could do as a really nice cartoon, but it lacks the punch in the planning.