Common Sense Note
Parents should know that because of global warming, the heroes are in peril from rising waters and they are stalked by somewhat scary-looking underwater creatures. There is comic slapstick violence (the acorn-chasing muskrat is squashed, splatted, attacked by a vulture, etc.), a sad memory of a mother's death, and a flood, and the tiger's fear of water is rendered in a couple of "nightmare" images (his point of view underwater, with big music). The film includes some very mild language ("crap," "ass," "pervert").
Families can talk about the alternative family (here called a "herd") developed by our plucky heroes. How do their different talents and interests help them to survive? How do they learn to support one another rather than argue or compete? How does Sid, who shows a persistent faith in everyone's worth, become the "glue" that holds them all together? How does the introduction of new members (Ellie and her possum brothers) temporarily disrupt the dynamic, as characters are jealous or afraid of being abandoned?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Cynthia Fuchs
Like the original film, ICE AGE: THE MELTDOWN features appealing characters in recognizable, particularly familial situations. This time out, the multi-culti family -- fretful woolly mammoth Manny (Ray Romano), aggressive sabertooth tiger Diego (Denis Leary), and friendly, lispy sloth Sid (John Leguizamo) -- are on the move due to global warming. Warned by a sideshow barker turtle, Fast Tony (Jay Leno), who predicts a bleak and very immediate future of floods and devastation, they seek a legendary big-bark-boat, large enough to handle hundreds of post-prehistoric creatures.
Each of the animals has his own special role as they travel: Diego's afraid of water, Sid's trying to keep everyone's spirits up, and Manny worries that he's the last of his kind. Just as he and his friends are philosophizing about extinction, he meets Ellie (Queen Latifah), a pert green-eyed mammoth who thinks she's a possum. When her own mother froze during the Ice Age, she was adopted by a possum mother, who has two boys of her own (hyperactive, annoying, and cute, voiced by Seann William Scott and Josh Peck).
Between Ellie's delusion and a couple of Jaws-like predators hunting them from beneath the thawing ice, Mr. Uplift Sid has his work cut out for him. As well, the herd is haunted by vultures, who appear periodically to remind them of their coming demise (one spectacular, Busby-Berkeley-ish number has them singing and gyrating to a show-tune about "carrion"). This jokey scene is framed by images of death or loss: Ellie has a flashback to her dead mother, frozen solid as the baby mammoth leans into her; Fast Tony is perversely unaffected by the remnants of his own dead buddy, a turtle shell floating by; and in the final scenes, the flood is ominous.
When the film runs low on plot, it cuts away to Scrat, the acorn-doting muskrat who keeps cracking ice walls and starting leaks in order to get at his prize, big eyes bulging and Wile E. Coyote-style limbs stretching. This bit was charming once and in a small dose, but might seem tedious after twice and three and four times.
For all mixing of fun and menace, the film is really about sincere, sometimes affecting, and decidedly alternative family connections.
Families who like this movie will also like the first film, Ice Age, as well as Brother Bear, Dinosaur, The Land Before Time (1988), and Finding Nemo.
Rate It!
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Sexual ContentManny seeks a mate, with some allusions made to preventing the extinction of the species. |
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ViolenceSome potentially frightening imagery and music to show the threat of the melting ice (cracking ice, falls down mountainsides, plummets into water); two toothy creatures underwater hunt and grab at heroes periodically; a scene showing a mother woolly mammoth frozen as her child leans into the mother's now-abstracted form is sad; a group of vultures perform elaborate musical number about "" and "" tiger must jump into water that scares him to save his friends; flooding at end might be worrisome for young viewers with memories of recent Louisiana and Mississippi flooding. |
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LanguageSome comic phrases might inspire imiitation ("suck air"); film includes a fart joke, "ass," "crap," and "pervert". |
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Social BehaviorHeroes quarrel then come together to triumph over climate change (coming flood) and attendant dangers (underwater creatures). |
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