Ice age meets Jurrasic Park

Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
Voice-over: Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, Simon Pegg, Queen Latifah, Chris Wedge
Director: Carlos Saldanha
Rating: «««

Ice Age 3 is an adventure. The sub-zero heroes Scrat (Chris Wedge), mammoths Manny (Ray Romano) and Ellie (Queen Latifah), Sid (John Leguizamo) the sloth, Diego (Denis Leary) the saber-toothed tiger and an assortment of dinosaurs are the main players here. Scrat continues to play hero in the parallel story that underlines his everlasting search for the ever-elusive acorn. The main plot though has Sid lost in dinosaur country and his friends Manny, mother-to-be Ellie, Diego and Ellie’s two precocious possum “brothers” — Eddie (Josh Peck) and Crash (Seann William Scott) — embarking on a rescue mission into the underground world with the help of a one-eyed dino-hunting weasel — Buck (Simon Pegg).

A lonely Sid adopts three baby dinosaurs hatched from eggs he’s found, only to see their real mother emerge from the fascinating netherworld to rescue her precious trio. It’s like putting stone-age man in the 20th century world-pure fantasy. Dinosaurs in the underground were already seen in ‘Journey to the center of the Earth’, so the concept is not very original either. From the frozen Tundra to the tropical forests of the netherworld appears to be a huge jump in time. It remains unexplained and is therefore questionable. However, of the three Ice Age movies seen so far this one packs the bigger punch. The search and rescue action is edge-of-the-seat exciting, the pace is racy and the live action animation C.G.I is vibrant, colourful and picturesque. On the distaff side, the film is irritatingly verbose.

The 3D add-on has depth but there are no leap-off-the-screen sequences to add the thrills. Carlos Saldanha’s narrative loses edge as the story progresses. Scrat’s track appears irrelevant yet it is more entertaining. In fact, the next installment should make Scrat’s segment the main act and dump the other one which is going nowhere, really!