--===============0739564314== Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Check out the Movie Mark for more reviews (with captioned pictures!) and movie entertainment:
http://www.themoviemark.com
Ice Age: The Meltdown http://www.themoviemark.com/moviereviews/iceage2.asp
PLOT
All the ice from the Ice Age is melting and a bunch of talking, animated prehistoric animals have to survive. Oh, and a squirrel named Scrat continues his effort to get the nut he so desires. A sequel to a CGI movie that I never saw ensues.
JOHNNY'S TAKE
Ice Age: The Meltdown is a perfect example of the kind of movie I hate to review. No matter what I say, it's going to make approximately $1 billion on opening weekend, so what's the point? Plus, a lot of my readers are guys who are only interested in movies where at least 42 people get shot or Adam Sandler talks in a funny voice and makes sounds that have no grammatical basis. The day they go to see Ice Age: The Meltdown is the day Rob Schneider gets nominated for an Oscar, which would most likely also be the day I vow to stop watching movies completely.
So writing this review is nothing more than an exercise in futility. If you enjoyed the original then you'll go see this follow-up no matter how harsh I am. If you hated the original then even my softest, most poetic words would be hard-pressed to convince you this was worth your time or money. So you know what? Go with your gut on this one; I really don't care either way.
I never saw Ice Age so I can't compare the two. All I know is that this installment, while cute and pleasant enough, has no real "wow" factor. Sure, it looks nice and is fairly harmless, but it tries just a little too hard to cater to the smallest of children while leaving most adults a little alienated. The problem is that the writers at Pixar have mastered the fine art of being clever enough to appeal equally to both children and adults (think Toy Story and The Incredibles). Everybody else (yes, this means you, Ice Age) is just a distant contender with a flair for pretty graphics rather than sharp storytelling.
I heard somebody on the radio refer to Ice Age 2 as "better than Toy Story." As Teaspoon Hunter might say, "Cow pies." Not even close. You can sell that some place else, Sam Cain, because Emma ain't buyin' it (sorry, a little Young Riders (buy the DVD!) reference for you).
Now if I had been hired to work on the movie then I would've titled it Ice Age: The Final Countdown. At the end of the movie CGI versions of the members of Europe would have shown up and all the prehistoric animals would have jammed to their undeserved hit The Final Countdown. That would've been some sweet action, and you know it. Just picture CGI versions of the bandmates' bad 80s hairdos. Talk about a missed opportunity.
THE GIST
Ice Age: The Meltdown didn't exactly knock my socks off but it didn't insult my intelligence either. See it if you want. Or don't. Doesn't matter to me.
Rating: 2.75 (out of 5)
Johnny Betts The Movie Mark http://www.themoviemark.com
--===============0739564314== Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 Content-Disposition: inline
LS0gCnJlYy1hcnRzLW1vdmllcy1yZXZpZXdzQHJvYm9tb2QubmV0IG1haWxpbmcgbGlzdApodHRw Oi8vd3d3LnJvYm9tb2QubmV0L21haWxtYW4vbGlzdGluZm8vcmVjLWFydHMtbW92aWVzLXJldmll d3MK
--===============0739564314==--
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews