Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006)

Manny, Sid, and Diego discover that the ice age is coming to an end, and join everybody for a journey to higher ground. On the trip, they discover that Manny, in fact, is not the last of the woolly mammoths. Ice Age: The Meltdown is the perfect example of how to make a great 2nd film especially since it brings new faces and new villains to the table. For example i love Ellie's backstory and her character as a whole she's sweet and funny also i love those 2 little fellas Crash and Eddie and the new villains the Vulture and the 2 sea creatures were great and quite dangerous to begin with. The film is heavily invested upon friendship and family as well which is a good message for the kids and the overall animation is terrific. In the end Ice Age 2 is a fun, light hearted and above all fun sequel that expands the universe that the first film made and once again Scrat steals the show especially the Karate moments were entertaining as hell. (A+)

With the Ice Age coming to an end, Manny (Ray Romano), Sid (John Leguizamo) and Diego (Denis Leary) learn that the valley they are living in will collapse and ultimately flood. They set off on a journey to reach higher ground, with Manny depressed at the fact that he may be the last mammoth alive. They come across two mischievous opossums Crash (Seann William Scott) and Eddie (Josh Peck), who are travelling with their 'sister' Ellie (Queen Latifah), a mammoth who believes that she is an opossum. Facing some hungry sea creatures, an army of mini-sloths who wants to sacrifice Sid (who they believe to be a fire God), and a temperamental volcano, the group must face physical perils, as well as their own company.Following the mega-success of the first film, the first sequel (there are now four films all together) arrives with an increased budget and some much improved animation, and was naturally a huge success. It is a damning indictment of audience's thirst for originality, as The Meltdown is nothing more than a less-funny re-hash of the first film. The wafer- thin plot of the first is given a slight twist with the fact that they are escaping a massive world event, rather than returning a baby to some humans, but it is the same basic, threadbare story. Only this time, the ever-annoying Queen Latifah is on hand to give her trademark sass, and make me want to throw things at the screen.That said, the film is as mindlessly entertaining as it predecessor, with Sid providing the majority of the laughs within the central plot, even though the focus seems to have moved to the less interesting Manny and his relationship with Ellie. But Scrat, the sabre-toothed squirrel that was highlight of the first film, is on hand again to provide some inspired animated physical comedy, as his endless quest to retrieve his acorn carries on, inadvertently getting caught up with the events around him. Overall, a bit of a disappointment given the fact that the first film wasn't bad at all, but is still able to provide enough laughs to make it worthy of 90 minutes of your time.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

The first movie was great, introduced fairly unique characters and made the plot interesting.The second movie deals more with finding mates for the characters and trying to learn how sacrificing one's time for another works.The only thing I didn't like, but was part of the plot in the first place, was the melting and the idea of global warming. True or fiction, I don't care. But I just don't like the idea of a political message being put into a fun entertaining movie.But other than that, it wasn't the best but it wasn't horrible either.I rate it 7/10

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)