Ice Age
Year: 2002
Rating: PG
Length: 81 minutes / 1.35 hours
In an era where most CGI animated movies were coming out of either Pixar or DreamWorks, Ice Age (2002) was a strong contender for 20th Century Fox. While a comedy with talking animals wasn’t a particularly new idea, the setting of prehistoric times made for an amusing “road trip” film as these creatures set out to return a human baby to its tribe. The jokes are smart (which every parent always appreciates), but there’s a thin layer of darker tone that lies underneath that might make this movie a little scary for little kids.
Star-studded voice casts had become common by this time, but the three leads of Ray Romano (Manny), Denis Leary (Diego), and John Leguizamo (Sid) are iconic and fit their characters to a tee. And while it was clear the setting was much easier to render in this era than something with grass or other high-detail backgrounds, the detail on these prehistoric animals felt like the right place to focus the animation efforts. It wasn’t anything to write home about (the humans looked worse than something on the edge of the uncanny valley), but it mattered where it needed to so the story could shine through.
Of course, with such a simple plot, it was hard to ignore how short this movie felt. That there needed to be several gag vignettes focusing on Scrat tells me all I need to know about what they had to do to pad the run-time. Granted, the Scrat bits are probably the funniest of the movie (and the franchise in general) and I don’t think I’d cut them anyway due to the high-energy hi-jinks that helped break up long segments of the main characters just walking to a new location. That this movie started a franchise that still exists today should tell you they did something right.
A great non-Pixar or DreamWorks film in the early years of CGI animation, I give Ice Age 4.0 stars out of 5.
