Thursday, March 14, 2002
A cast of actors does a fine job with voiceovers.
By MILAN PAURICH
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
The funny, clever trailer for "Ice Age" with an acorn-bedeviled Scrat (half squirrel, half rat) inadvertently setting off a glacial avalanche seems to have been running in theaters since the real Ice Age.
Now that the movie's finally here, it can't help but seem a tad anticlimactic. As far as digitally animated family comedies go, "Age" is definitely no "Shrek," although it does offer substantially more grown-up appeal than the slavishly juvenile "Monsters, Inc." Let's rank it a close second to Christmas sleeper "Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius."
The most surprising thing about Twentieth Century Fox's latest bid for 'toon immortality is how square it is. Certainly the Scrat trailer promised a hipness and sophistication that the movie itself rarely delivers.
Borrows: Also confounding is the sheer number of Disney animated movies it borrows from.
The opening scenes in which lumbering prehistoric creatures begin a southerly migration to escape the encroaching Ice Age feel directly lifted from "Dinosaur;" the animal world's politicking (especially among the diabolical saber-toothed tigers) recalls "The Lion King;" and a human child being raised by beasties is straight out of "The Jungle Book." If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, they must be all smiles at The Mouse House these days.
Taken on its own very mild terms, though, "Ice Age" serves up a pleasant enough mixture of humor and sentimentality. Just don't go expecting anything original in the story or character department -- or any groundbreaking technology either.
At heart, this is really just an odd couple road movie.
Plot: After a slacker of a sloth named Sid (John Leguizamo) is rescued from a pair of disagreeable rhinos by noble woolly mammoth Manfred (Ray Romano), the two head south together in their own leisurely fashion. Since elephants aren't exactly known for speed and sloths are aptly named, they make a perfect fit.
Joining their caravan are gurgling manchild Roshan (every bit as annoying as baby Boo in "Monsters") who Sid hopes to reunite with his natural parents and a tough-guy tiger named Diego (Denis Leary). The double-dealing Diego is secretly plotting to snatch (and eat) the toddler to appease fierce tribe leader Soto (Goran Visnjic).
The actors' voice-over work mostly delivers the goods. Leguizamo is a hoot as Sid; Leary makes an appropriately snarky Diego; and Jack Black, Cedric The Entertainer and Stephen Root provide indispensable backup support as assorted critters. Romano, one of the dullest stand-up comics to ever become a sitcom superstar, makes a predictably colorless Manfred. And casting thickly accented Visnjic as the central villain positively reeks of xenophobia.
Scrat fans can rest easy, though. The stubborn little rodent makes several appearances throughout the course of the breezily paced, 80-minute film, including a closing credits capper guaranteed to send you out smiling.
XSee "Ice Age" beginning Friday at Austintown Plaza 10, Boulevard Centre in Niles, Cinema 8 in Hermitage or Tinseltown in Boardman.