We are in the midst of a golden age of CG-animated films, right?
Pixar cooks up one classic after another, while all the other studios
fill in the mediocre bracket (and produce a few gems here and there).
Indie companies have also started to get on the train, and the advent
of digital 3-D (out with the blue-and-red Saran Wrap and in with the
stereoscopic Wayfarers!) has enriched the visuals as much as it has
reinvigorated the theater experience. If this is, in fact, the golden
age, then the newest entry in the genre, Ice Age: Dawn of the
Dinosaurs, definitely doesn’t signal a slump.
The third installment in the Ice Age series stars the now-familiar
family of Pleistocene creatures as they venture below the ice and
discover a preposterously lush, dino-filled world. They have to rescue
their sloth friend, Sid (John Leguizamo), who was abducted by an irate
mama T. rex after taking her eggs and trying to raise the babies on his
own. Upon first descending beneath the ice, they meet the
scene-stealing Buck (Simon Pegg). He’s a balls-to-the-wall weasel
adventurer who guides them through numerous perils as he aims to
capture, once and for all, the enigmatic “White Dinosaur” that took his
eye years ago.
It’s no secret that writers of these children’s movies mix in adult
references to entertain the parents, but a few in Ice Age: Dawn of the
Dinosaurs are surprisingly edgy (one scene involves a descent into a
gaseous chasm, where if you breathe in the smoke, you laugh yourself to
death). The “journey to certain death and back” plot is exciting enough
to distract from a few awful jokes and missteps. And that nut-crazed
squirrel, why, he’s the best thing since Wile E. Coyote. 