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Ice Age: The Meltdown

The squirrel's cool, the rest, not so much

By CHRIS WANGLER | March 28, 2006

2.0 Stars

BOWLING PINS: Subtlety is not this sequel's strong suit.

Carlos Saldanha’s brilliantly animated but scarcely believable sequel must take the cake for sheer elapsed time. The first movie took place during the onset of an ice age; now, somehow, that era is drawing to a close as a melting glacier is set to flood the edenic valley. Joined by two possums and a mammoth, the three amigos (John Leguizamo’s Sid the Sloth, Ray Romano’s Manny the Mammoth, and Denis Leary’s Diego the Sabertooth) set out for an ersatz ark, drawing attention to appropriate character failings en route as if they were bowling pins for the screenwriter to knock over. Poorly imagined bad guys (shark-like ichthians) and some garden-variety pandemonium don’t help. The biggest stretch involves Queen Latifah’s female mammoth, Ellie, who believes she’s a possum; even young kids will find this suspicious. Fortunately, the Wile E. Coyote–style sequences featuring Scrat, an acorn-obsessed squirrel, are even more awesome this time out.

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Watch the trailer for Ice Age: The Meltdown (QuickTime)

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