Synopsis:
After Scrat causes the continents to divide the Herd is split up in a devastating earthquake. Manny, Sid and Diego must sail back to the mainland whilst being pursued by a band of pirates, seeking vengeance after the trio destroyed their ship.
Blue Sky has come a long long way technically, Ice Age
without a doubt it’s mascot series. Pixar has Toy Story, Dreamworks has Shrek,
and Blue Sky Studios has Ice Age. Every new outing for these three animation
juggernauts has showed a leap in graphics and I’ve got no harm in saying that
Ice Age has come the furthest. It’s humble beginnings in Maya for Ice Age is no longer comparable in
terms of animation quality. Blue Sky studios stand alone with water graphics.
It’s simply so real it’s almost unbelievable. An absolute treat for the eyes, it’s
like an all you can eat buffet for the retinas. This is paralleled by the leaps
and bounds made regarding action sequences. Unfortunately for this series though
this may be a leap and bound in the wrong direction, replacing the charm and
depth of the first Ice Age with insane, mind bogglingly insane and implausible
action sequences.
Let’s take a look at Toy
Story and Shrek. Toy Story has been consistently flawless. Shrek faltered in it’s third outing
but COMPLETELY made up for it in its fourth. It noticed its failings and picked
itself up. The issue with Ice Age is that it is slowly trundling along, maybe
even getting worse. Although still fun and yes, it has become more successful financially
with each passing instalment and I can only be happy for Blue Sky’s
achievements but I can’t help but feel they are also becoming lazier. Simply
playing off of its gimmick it’s bringing you already told stories in the
setting of the ice age. It’s certainly the youngest franchise of the three mentioned
above and has already turned out four films. Showing no signs of stopping I
hope it realises how special it really is, return to its routes and pull off a
Shrek by picking itself up and going out with a bang. Ice Age 4 is certainly
not the film to do that (fingers crossed for the return of humans, who at the
moment I can only presume have gone extinct).
But that’s not to say the franchise has completely fallen
off. The soul of the original is still there and I believe Blue Sky made the
right decision by cutting the cast in half. I found our list of protagonists
getting a little too long for my liking and by adding in another couple key
players in Sid’s (who by the way along with Scrat is on top comedic form)
grandmother and a mole rat with an infatuation with Manny’s daughter, Peaches
(yeah, try and figure that one out), things were getting very crowded. So
instead of throwing them all into one nautical adventure they literally sent
them on two different journeys. This allowed them to give the new characters
that have been introduced over the series to get involved with more personal
issues whilst our main herd attacks the bulk of story.
This bulk includes the introduction of a band of pirates led
by the vicious Captain Gutt, a gigantopithecus ape that has takien to hoarding food on the high seas with the help of
his crew. The past couple Ice Age outings have dealt with more primitive
antagonists so it was nice to see a return to the more calculated villain.
Unfortunately the cartoony type action takes away from his threat level but he’s
certainly one of the best personalities to grace our screens so far this year.
Overview:
A very funny, beautifully made and exciting film to watch.
Although let down by its apparent urge to forget what made Ice Age so brilliant to begin with I’m sure there is still better
to come and as always I’ll welcome any Ice
Age film with open arms.
★★★
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