Ice, ice candy

Review by Vives Anunciacion

Ice Age 2: The Meltdown
Directed by Carlos Saldanha
Written by Peter Gaulke, Gerry Swallow, Jim Hecht
Voices by Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, Queen Latifah
GP/ 90 minutes
20th Century Fox
Opens March 29

Manny the Mammoth, Sid the Sloth and Diego the Sabretooth Tiger return onscreen to escape global warming in the second installment of the hilarious 2002 animation. Ice Age 2: The Meltdown has more characters, more amusing gags and the memorable Scrat is still trying to catch that old acorn.

In Ice Age 2, global warming is melting the world’s ice, threatening to flood the valley where Manny, Sid and Diego are peacefully living with the rest of the prehistoric herd. News of a “big boat” where the animals can take refuge convinces the herd to leave the valley before the ice dam breaks.

Meanwhile, the happy trio of Manny, Sid and Diego are finding out they have new issues to deal with. Manny (again voiced by Ray Romano) yearns to discover another mammoth and refuses to believe he is the last of his kind. Sid (John Leguizamo), who was the crack of jokes in the first movie, yearns for a little respect from the herd. Diego (Denis Leary), the metaphorical cat out of the bag, discovers that his fear of water, and the coming flood is only making that fear worse.

Things get warmer when they accidentally meet Ellie (Queen Latifah), a female mammoth and her two pesky possum brothers Crash (Seann William Scott) and Eddie (Josh Peck). Manny isn’t sure he’s happy to find another mammoth, since Ellie thinks and acts like she’s a possum. Before he can convince Ella to like him, he must first convince himself that he likes her and then convince her that she’s a mammoth. Sid and Diego help along in order to save the mammoth species from extinction.

Still funny and irreverent as the first outing but more character driven, The Meltdown sheds its evolutionary background and mixes biblical metaphors with mass extinction. Scrat the proto-squirrel provides side-splitting intermission, the same funny antics that made him the main attraction in the first movie. However, kids who were too young to see the first one will still find this a fun introduction to mammoths and mammals, as this version can stand alone regardless of the first Ice Age.

Great animation and visuals and a lot of funny stuff especially an update to the first movie’s “dodo” sequence – Sid gets to inspire a tribe of very impressionable mini-sloths. As soon as the animals reach the “boat” of salvation, though, the narrative and the comedy stand to a halt.

The first Ice Age may get the bigger share of laughs, but give no cold shoulder to this one – Ice Age 2: The Meltdown has lots of fresh stuff to cool down any globe-sized warming.