9th July, 2009

DAVID ADAMS

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (PG)

In a word: Reinvigorating (the Ice Age franchise)

MEET THE FAMILY: Ellie, Manny and Diego encounter the oddball Buck. "Like the first Ice Age, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is a rollicking adventure with a strong family theme running through it."

The stars might be all back - Manny the Mammoth (voiced by Ray Romano), Diego the sabre-toothed tiger (Denis Leary) and Sid the sloth (John Leguizamo) as well as Manny’s new wife Ellie (Queen Latifah) - but it’s newcomer, Buck the weasel (Simon Pegg), who gets the big laughs this time.

The gang - introduced to us in the first Ice Age - meet Buck when they decide to head into an subterranean dinosaur world to find Sid who, after adopting a group of baby dinosaurs as his own, is abducted by their mother and carried back home to their underground domain.

A lone adventurer - whose nemesis is the great white dinosaur, Rudy - Buck offers to guide the newcomers through his world so they can complete their quest to find Sid. But they quickly realise that Buck, though fearless and good with a vine and a knife, is slightly mad (after all, he did once marry a pineapple - and an ugly one at that!)

Like the first Ice Age, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is a rollicking adventure with a strong family theme running through it, giving that heart-warming glow at the end. As the title suggests, there are some scary scenes with dinosaurs which may disturb very young viewers - particularly when watching the 3D version - certainly worth the extra couple of bucks.

Fans of the previous films will be pleased to see that, as the advertising promised, Scrat returns, and his story of love won and lost is intertwined with the main narrative, though we remain uncertain who is his true love - the female Scrat or the acorn that he relentlessly pursues?

While the second of the Ice Age films wasn’t up to the magic of the first, this one represents a return to form and holds out the promise that there’s life in this franchise yet. Bring on Ice Age 4!

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