The “Ice Age” movies make-up one of the most successful animated franchises of all-time. Each of the first three films grossed close to $200 million domestically, and Fox produced a nice Holiday special starring the gang last November. Unfortunately the latest in the series – “Continental Drift” – is the worst of the bunch, with the fewest amount of laughs and the weakest story, proving that it’s time to declare this franchise extinct. EXCEPT that this film, amazingly, made nearly $715 million internationally (to go with $160M in the US) making it one of the most successful animated films of all-time. So that means we haven’t seen the last of these prehistoric pals.
“Continental Drift” begins badly, with a scene that was released as a short called “Scrat’s Continental Crack-Up” way back in December 2010. In it we learn that it was Scrat’s eagerness to get his hands on an acorn that caused the land on Earth to separate and form all the continents. It’s a cute concept and the animation is fine, but it’s old so you don’t laugh at any of the gags. And this sets the stage for more disappointments to come.
The break-up of the land causes a panic among the Ice Age creatures. Manny (again voiced by Ray Romano) and Ellie (Queen Latifah) had a daughter in “Ice Age 3”. Now Peaches has grown into a teenager. She wants to start hanging out with her friends and dating boys, but Manny’s an over-protective father and won’t allow it. So Peaches gets mad, telling him, “I wish you weren’t my dad”. Manny is stunned and hurt but Ellie lends some words of advice. If this sounds like a boring and predictable sitcom plot that’s because it is.
The continental shake-up causes Manny to become separated from the rest of his family. He ends-up on an iceberg with old pals Diego (Denis Leary) and Sid (John Leguizamo) and Sid’s Granny, who’s thrown-in simply to make wise-cracks. The group meets-up with a group of…(drumroll please) Prehistoric Pirates, who Manny and company have to defeat before they can reunite with their families and friends.
“Ice Age: Continental Drift” is the perfect example of what happens when a studio makes one too many sequels. This script wasn’t worthy of a feature-length film. In fact it would have made a bad TV special. We’ve come to expect more from the “Ice Age” films (and animated sequels in general). This basic storyline, with no clever situations and boring new characters, shows that this series should have ended with “Ice Age: “Dawn of the Dinosaurs”. Just the fact that they had to make Peaches a teenager so they could build around the “over-protective father” theme, shows how desperate the writers were to come-up with something. And there are a few sub-plots that are just as dull.
Also, “Continental Drift” introduces way too many new characters. There’s Peaches’ friends, the pirates, Sid’s family and more – and not a single one is interesting. So, because they didn’t have much of a story or good characters to work with, the filmmakers jam “Continental Drift” with action scene after action scene – racing, slipping, sliding, fighting. Very little kids might enjoy all the craziness, but the wild pace will simply frustrate anyone over 10.
However, even with all of it’s problems, “Continental Drift” is not a complete mess. The animation is fantastic. Blue Sky Studios remains one of the best in the business when it comes to making great looking animated films. The new Scrat vignettes are fun, and they include a couple of good character cameos. And there is one very funny line uttered by Sid early in the film which pokes fun at the entire “Ice Age” universe. Unfortunately, whoever wrote that joke took the rest of the movie off.
“Ice Age: Continental Drift” is rated PG for brief language and some very mild action. It’s appropriate for kids 8 and up, who may just be the target audience, which is shocking, since the best animated films these days are designed to appeal to both kids and adults.
On The Official LCJ Report Card, “Ice Age: Continental Drift” gets a C.
I thought, at the time I originally wrote my review this summer, that “Continental Drift” had killed this series-off once and for all. But it’s success at the box office should mean otherwise. Let’s hope “IA5” has a script that will help bring the franchise back to life.