Reviews
Amazon.co.uk
The love life of a woolly mammoth - handled with U-rated delicacy - drives this sequel to the first computer-animated romp in the age of prehistoric mammals. While the first Ice Age took a delightful premise and suffocated it with a formulaic plot - in which a mammoth named Manfred (voiced by Ray Romano, Everyone Loves Raymond), a sloth named Sid (John Leguizamo, Moulin Rouge!), and a sabre-tooth tiger named Diego (Denis Leary, Rescue Me) helped an abandoned human infant return to its tribe (basically, Three Mammals and a Baby) - the sequel takes the now-familiar setting, gives it a shapeless, episodic storyline, and yet somehow becomes pretty darn entertaining. Faced with the threat of a flood from melting ice, our heroic trio are on the run to escape from their blossoming valley. On the way, they meet a female mammoth (Queen Latifah, Bringing Down the House) who thinks she's an opossum and get menaced by some freshly defrosted carnivorous fish. Add into the mix a herd of lava-worshipping mini-sloths, some Busby Berkeley-style vultures, and more ingenious slapstick featuring the acorn-crazed Scrat, and Ice Age: The Meltdown will amuse even jaded adults. --Bret Fetzer
Synopsis
With their habitat under threat from flooding caused by the ending of the ice age, unlikely friends Manny the woolly mammoth, Diego the sabre-toothed tiger, and Sid the sloth set out on a quest to find a boat that is rumoured to be at the other end of the valley. To add even more danger to their perilous mission, two carnivorous prehistoric fish have thawed out from the ice and begin to follow the herd in the rising water. While on their quest, the trio meet possums Crash and Eddie and Ellie the woolly mammoth, who believes that she is a possum. Manny is delighted that he isn't the last of his breed but Manny and Ellie have frequent disagreements. Separately, Scrat remains behind in order to hunt an acorn. The characters in the film go on a journey of self discovery, overcoming their fears and the sense of the unknown on the way. Featuring a superb voice cast including Ray Romano (EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND), John Leguizamo (SPAWN), Denis Leary (SMALL SOLDIERS), and Queen Latifa (TAXI), ICE AGE 2 - THE MELTDOWN is a fabulously animated film that retains the humour of ICE AGE, introduces a number of new characters and gives more screen time to the popular character Scrat, who is continuing on his arduous mission to acquire an acorn.