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I borrowed my sister's children (ages 8 and 12), and took them with me to see this movie. As avid fans of the first Ice Age, they'd been looking forward to the second installment with the sort of untainted enthusiasm only children possess. They weren't disappointed. Was I? Yes and no.
Like the first film, Ice Age: The Meltdown involves the same three characters: Manny the mammoth, Diego the tiger, and Sid the sloth (voiced respectively by Ray Romano, Denis Leary and John Leguizamo) having to once again embark on a long journey. This time around, they’re forced to up sticks and leave their valley before the ice melts and floods the patch of dirt they call home (hence the title).
Propping up this rather thin storyline is a multitude of subplots, with Manny looking for a mate, Diego learning to swim, and Sid finding a long lost tribe of mini-sloths. These asides help to keep the ball rolling, but the real star of the show is Scrat, the manic, acorn-obsessed squirrel so well received in the first film. Though nothing to do with the main story, this little guy's antics are almost worth the ticket price on their own. Gravity isn't kind to him, and neither is fate, but undeterred by both he carries on with his quest for the acorn in the best tradition of silent, slapstick comedy. Without him, the film would have descended into a pit of sentimental goo.
And that's the movie's main problem—too much soul-searching from characters that don't really have much soul. Out of the main three, only Sid the sloth is really watchable. There's nothing deep and meaningful about him, which means he can't get tied up with weighty issues such as extinction or environmental catastrophe. But for all the movie's shortfalls, I did get a nice warm feeling when the happy-ever-after ending wrapped things up. So even though it's no Toy Story or A Bug's Life, the benchmarks by which all computer-animated films should be measured, Ice Age: The Meltdown just about manages to hold its own.
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