Touches You

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The next part of the cute and comical series finds addition of more members in the herd family. Manny after a brief period of grief thinking he is the last Mammoth finds love in Ellie who thinks of herself as a Possum like her little brothers. A cute story wherein Ellie lives, acts and sleeps like a Possum just like her brothers. It is later that she realizes that she is actually a Mammoth. Sid is as always the glue of the herd but is not respected by others. He finds respect is a group of little Sloths who consider him as the fire Lord. He finally find respect but is sacrificed...huh...not killed....killing Sid is not that easy. The encounters of Manny and the two Possum brothers (as protector of their sister) was interesting and amusing. The meltdown, an effect of the global warming was the deeper thought of the movie in relation to the current situation. Scrat is as always after the fruit. He plays an important part in the end when he saves the life of the herd by dividing the flooding water through cracking of the snow. A cute story.......good for a quality time

A thaw is the chief threat to the lead characters in Ice Age: The Meltdown, the unfunny sequel to an original film from four years earlier which transported furry, anthropomorphic animated creatures of a bygone century back to a time when ice and snow blanketed the world and the issue of evolution seemingly didn't exist. Where there is a literal thaw within that of the film, there is a parallel one of exterior nature seeing the whole idea of these somewhat likable little characters and their adventures coming to wear rather thin – the film striking us as an exercise in looking to feed off recent glories by churning out sequels and sit on a soap box in the process. The error of the film's ways is in its removing of everything that made 2002's Ice Age fun; primarily, its character dynamics and its hybridising of an era set thousands and thousands of years ago with the modern-day. Here and now, there is very little wit to "Meltdown"; a film about characters making this huge trek across snowy wildernesses as this impending item of doom and destruction threatens them, and yet rarely feeling like anybody is actually going anywhere at all. Toss in a really meekly handled global warming message, designed to attune the kids to such an issue, but coming off as heavy handled; some annoying supporting characters and the fact that all of Ice Age's own ingenuity and charm has been stripped away from this project, and you have a fairly lacklustre computer animation which goes on for too long without engaging.The film begins with its characters in a pleasant enough place: a neat little Utopia built upon the icy plains of whatever stretch of land this is further-still tucked away in a makeshift corner which sports all you need to generally be able to relax in life. Located therein is Sid the sloth, voiced again by that of John Leguizamo whom, as it was in the first, provides Sid with the lispy and goofy verbal tones required to have us easily take to him. He runs what can only be described as a summer camp; a place for the tots of this world to come and play and swim and listen to stories told by that of the supervisors. Also there are Diego (Leary) and Manfred (Romano); Diego being the sabre-tooth tiger whose plight in the first it was which made him change from being the cold-hearted predator killer and into, well, someone whom still eats meat, we assume, but never his good friends the sloth or the mammoth. Manfred is that mammoth, and after some brief beginnings which feign as if to set up a different movie entirely more broadly linked to Sid's inability to communicate with the opposite sex; failure to establish order as the governing force of his workplace and the still-lacklustre levels of respect he has from his peers, we veer off and away down a route encompassing Manfred and his problems.But that comes a little later. First, there is a vulture and the ultimatum he offers to those located within this little zone. Principally, they all have three days to pack up and ship out, for that large cliff face-come-glacier behind them acting as a shield to anything and everything beyond it is beginning to melt out of a collective warming. The vulture warns them because he doesn't like wet food; their trek across the planet to find somewhere safer and away from the soon-to-be incoming wave of has-been ice block a journey he and his buddies hope will see them perish. Premise in mind, and a rounded deadline of three days one would assume that crafty vulture has specifically waited to unload unto them, the animals take the plunge and head off; thus kicking into gear one of the more sporadic and less involving animated pieces from recent years.Granted, there is something funny about a descendant from a squirrel named Scrat constantly chasing a nut – the likes of which rely on the physicality of the situation and the character's own flexibility. We are aware he cannot ever obtain the nut and the fact he often falls flat on his face in trying to retrieve it is second to how he goes about doing it. The pleasure one derives, although really ought not, from these skits leaves the rest of the film as unenjoyable as it is; a series of interludes relying on escapes from precarious situations and situational comedic content involving characters voiced by the likes of Queen Latifah (anybody who calls themselves "Queen" Latifah is practically asking to be ignored) to see it home. Examples of the magisterial levels of wit buried within Gerry Swallow and Peter Gaulke's screenplay arrive in the form of a whole pack of vultures doing an Oliver Twist number as well as a routine involving eccentric, pint-sized would-be desert island tribal creatures doing dances and such evoking the Eric Darnell movie from barely a year previously, in Madagascar.The film becomes Manfred's, and an internal/existential crisis through which he journeys to do with whether there is much point to carrying on if he is the sole mammoth left. Of course it turns out he isn't, but for time-limit's sake, it'll take some time to convince this newfound mammoth that they are what Manfred tells them they are – cue some rather risqué, and often out of place, gags about first dates and how far down the line heterosexual relationships need to be before whatever. The first Ice Age was a difficult film to dislike, "The Meltdown" is a very easy film to not take to at all; hollow praise aside that is "does" whatever "job" it needs to in order to quench entertainment driven thirsts of families encompassing that of young children, this first Ice Age sequel is just disappointing.

Ice Age: The Meltdown is really two movies and, like the predators that loom throughout, both movies are vying for supremacy. The first involves the prehistoric caravan from the original in a fast-paced adventure story as they try to stay one step ahead of a nasty plague of global warming. The second wallows in long treks of dialogue about extinction, misunderstandings, reproduction, phobias, what-makes-a-family and at least one head-scratcher of an identity crisis. I enjoyed the first but for the second, I kept longing for my Fast-Forward button.As you will recall, the characters from the earlier film Manfred the Mammoth, Sid the Sloth and Diego the Saber-toothed Tiger formed a small herd. They are no less friendly this time though some personality flaws start to emerge including Sid who contracts Dangerfield's Disease and complains that he don't get no respect; Diego has an apparent fear of water; Meanwhile, Manny fears that he's the last of his kind. You don't have to be Kreskin to figure out that all of these issues are dealt with in the third act.But the larger problem begins with the information that the ice glaciers are melting and they will soon find themselves a mile underwater if they don't find a legendary hollow log that will sail them to safety. That sets them on a long trek where they deal with their problems and Manny finds a pretty girl-mammoth named Elly (voice of Queen Lahtifah) who could help him repopulate the species if she wasn't under the delusion that she's a possum (It sounds lame but, trust me, it sets the stage for at least three brilliant sight-gags).Manny and Elly are sweet together and I enjoyed a lot of their chemistry. But their scenes together run a bit long and there is talk after talk after talk after talk and where the movie should be bouncy it just kind of politely rolls. The dialogue leaves the visuals (which are breathtaking) left to be glanced mostly over their shoulders.Apart from all of these problems is, of course, the reason we came to see the movie in the first place: Scrat the hapless squirrel who continues his endless quest to hold on to apparently the only acorn left on earth. He gets involved in three brilliant set-pieces, one involving piranha, one involving a run-in with a baby bird and a third that I can't reveal but let's just say it's strikes a perfect a note and closes the movie. Scrat is what holds the movie for me, just like the original Ice Age he's a hundred times more interesting than anything else in the film.Scrat helps to break up those long passages of dialogue and so do two production numbers that I didn't expect. One involves a masterpiece of comic genius involving some ever-watchful buzzards who perform perhaps the creepiest version of "Food, Glorious Food" that I've ever seen (somewhere Busby Berkley is either smiling or crying). The other involves a tribe of sloths who are so fascinated by Sid's ability to make fire that they pronounce him their fire god. They go into a fun chanting number that - darn it - had my toes tapping. The problem is that these great scenes are a very small part of the movie, broken up by long passages in which the characters talk and talk and talk.I wish the movie had found that kind of bouncy note of fun all the way instead of pausing for character flaws. As I said, this is two movies, one that moves and one stops for a long chat. I'm not averse to conversation but in the case of an animated comedy less might have been more.**1/2 (of four)

Our three heroes must flee the rising tides and find shelter on higher ground. Along the way they find that Manny is not the last mammoth, (and they cram in a few "name" voice actors to pad the credits)...Just barely makes the "worthwhile" cut, and really that's due to Sid once again. He's like the Steve Martin or Bill Murray of animated creatures, just watching him go about his everyday life is amusing to me.They almost sleepwalk through this one and the introduction of the mammoth love interest signaled the death knell to the franchise, (putting kids in the third only hammered the nails in the coffin. See also Shrek 2 and 3) but it provides enough jokes along the way to cadge a few laughs, and I guess little kids might like the possums and their antics even if the adults tire quickly.Ice Age 1 and 2 are basically road movies, the three animals must get from Point A at the start of the movie to Point B by the credits. As soon as they were given license to stay in one place in Ice Age 3 the film lost its way.What you hope kids will learn: (The most vague message in any of these films). Everyone needs to look out for one another(?) What they'll take away: Look, Possums!If you liked this review (or even if you didn't) check out oneguyrambling.com