BEFORE making general facetious remarks about the third film in Fox’s glacially (get it?) boring prehistoric franchise, let us consider the sabre-tooth tiger who goes by the name of Diego. Is it hyperbole to describe the creature (voiced, as ever, by Dennis Leary) as the most boring character in all animated cinema? I think not.
Composed of indifferently rendered grey polyhedrons, Diego is back to mope morosely about the drab planes and creaking forests that characterised the Cenozoic era. Listen, kiddies, as he drones on endlessly about the opportunities he forswore when he decided to befriend (rather than eat) two middle-class mammoths and a sloth with learning difficulties. Take away the elongated teeth, stand him on two legs, put him in a grey jumper and you have a character from a Mike Leigh film. Only without the jokes.
Come to think of it, much of Ice Age 3plays as if it were taking place on a bourgeois housing estate in contemporary Croydon. The two mammoths are now, erm, married and are preparing for the arrival of their first child. Mr Mammoth (Ray Romano) is becoming ever more neurotic about the forthcoming changes, whereas his wife (Queen Latifah) appears unshaken throughout.
Meanwhile, Sid the Sloth, the character who would be played by Timothy Spall in a Leigh film, has developed the urge to create his own family. If it weren’t for the dinosaurs, you’d half-expect Alison Steadman to turn up.
Hang on a moment. You don’t need a PhD in evolutionary biology to know that the dinosaurs vanished many millions of years before mammoths and sloths appeared. It is a measure of this franchise’s lazy construction that, bowing to pressure from fans who haven’t read enough Richard Dawkins, the film-makers have knocked together some half-assed plot contortion to justify the presence of giant mammal-hungry lizards.
You might, I suppose, get that in a Mike Leigh picture, but, having improvised their own dialogue, the Tyrannosauruses would really make you believetheir story.
Child's Eye: 12-year-old Orla Fahey loved the 3D effects in Ice Age 3
The movie kicks off when the audience sees the squirrel looking for his acorn and he meets a female squirrel. The movie is in 3D, which is a surprise as the others weren’t. The effects were something else.
It begins with Queen Latifah, playing Ellie, the pregnant mammoth. Manny freaks out about the baby when Ellie feels a kick. Crash and Eddie the possums play the stupid funny characters and there are some good comedy lines.
Sid is jealous of Manny because he is about to become a dad. He finds three large eggs and when he can’t find their owner he decides to keep them. When they hatch he is delighted to become their mum, even though he is male! When their real mum arrives, she takes Sid and her babies home to the jungle beneath the ice.
The gang go off to look for Sid and on their way meet Buck, who really made the movie. Buck makes up stories about his survival in the jungle, and the possums believe everything he says. He leads the group through the jungle, fighting danger from every direction, until they reach the dinosaur and Sid, who are still trying to resolve who should mind the babies.
During the journey, Ellie comes into danger when she has the baby. Diego and Manny fight off creatures. When Peaches arrives safely, Sid welcomes her and asks Manny if he can babysit!
I thought this was the best of the Ice Age movies and the 3D effects were brilliant.
I CE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS Directed by Carlos Saldanha and Michael Thurmeier. Voices of Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, Simon Pegg, Queen Latifah G cert, general release, 94 min
