Parents' Guide to

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

By Sandie Angulo Chen, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 6+

3-D sequel is fun but also more intense than past films.

Movie PG 2009 87 minutes
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

age 5+

Based on 52 parent reviews

age 7+

Unnecessary Sexy Parts

You should know that there’s a couple innuendos … The Sid character want to get milk from an oxen type creature in order to feed the baby dinosaurs he found. He reaches up and pulls on something underneath the animal, who reacts with shock and surprise and then growls at Sid. Sid ran and yelled “sorry, I thought you were a female!” Then later the boy squirrel is stuck on the tree trunk with tar, and the acorn stuck on him with tar. The girl squirrel shows up and seductive music plays as it shows a close up of her fingers “walking” seductively on the acorn towards Sid’s face, then suddenly she grabs hold of the acorns stem and yanks it off. Sis screams as the shot reveals his bare chest with his fur ripped off b

This title has:

Too much sex
age 2+

Great movie for people who aren’t easily offended

It’s easy for people to find things to be offended over in these Ice Age movies. They have some crude humor, which a lot of people don’t like. They’re rated PG for a reason. My household doesn’t mind it. There is a pregnant character, but if a child doesn’t understand “a baby in a woman’s belly”, there’s a serious problem. I have a hard time believing a 6-10 year old has never seen a pregnant woman or animal in real life. The characters tease each other in a brotherly sort of way. I wouldn’t call it “bullying”. The dinosaurs can be a bit scary. The squirrels flirt. For Pete’s sake- there was no sexual assault. That was a complete overreaction on someone else’s review. There’s a lot of action, but we liked it.

This title has:

Great messages
Great role models

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (52):
Kids say (68):

While the first two Ice Age films were humorous character studies of unlikely prehistoric friends, the "threequel" is less compelling than its predecessors and much more about the action. Audiences already know how the main characters interact, so the focus shifts to the dangerous search for Sid and the obstacles that Manny, Diego, Ellie, and her nitwit twin "brothers" (Josh Peck, Seann William Scott) face. This works fine for Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs' 3-D scenes, but in the process the movie loses a tiny bit of the franchise's humor and heart.

The only memorable new additions are Buck (British comic actor Simon Pegg), a hermitic warrior weasel who guides the crew to Sid, and the three dinosaur babies, who can't play well with their Ice Age friends (a playground scene hilariously turns into an unlikely feast as the triplets swallow their new playmates). And arguably the best new character doesn't utter a single word: Scrat's love interest, Scratte, a winged female creature who desires that elusive acorn just as much as her beloved. Scrat and that acorn are the perfect animated example of physical comedy, and their scenes alone are worth a trip to the multiplex.

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