Ice Age: Continental Drift Review

Ice Age: Continental Drift is the fourth entry in the Ice Age franchise, and it’s evident that the franchise has run out of steam. The film offers very little new substance to the proceedings. Instead, it retreads a lot of ground covered in the previous films. It’s sad to say, but there just isn’t much new here to keep any but the youngest of audiences engaged.

The previous films were about strong family values and all featured stories about reuniting with loved ones. Ice Age 4 is more of the same. The plot this time around sees Scrat, the voiceless sabre-toothed squirrel obsessed with finding and burying the perfect acorn, trigger the breakup of the Pangea supercontinent. The fracturing of landmasses takes place just as Manny (Ray Romano), Ellie (Queen Latifah) and Peaches (Keke Palmer) are fighting about Manny’s heavy-handed parenting. See, Peaches is a teenage wooly mammoth now, and as such, she wants to hang out with the cute guys and popular girls. Manny sees that as a path to delinquency and forbids such risky behavior. It’s a silly, standard teenage-angst and overbearing parents setup. During the arguement, the continents split, and Manny, Diego (Denis Leary), and Sid (John Leguizamo) find themselves on an iceberg floating out to sea. So, Manny promises to do everything in his power to make it back to the mainland to reunite with his family.

The addition of some new characters is a bid to keep the humor and drama fresh, but only two really stand out. Sid’s grandmother (Wanda Sikes) offers a little bit of fresh humor (lost dentures jokes are always are good for a laugh). A female sabre-tooth (Jennifer Lopez) cat tries to give Diego some romantic tension, and they have a few cute but totally derived moments together.

While out to sea, the gang encounters pirates and has various adventures. Too bad both the collection of pirates and the action elements are bland.

I really wanted to enjoy Ice Age: Continental Drift. Unfortunately, it comes across as a lengthy Saturday morning cartoon. None of the characters have notable arcs through the film, and as a result, the film feels very empty. We’ve seen enough from the earlier films to know that Diego is a sweethearted cat, Manny loves his family, Sid is dumb but loyal, etc. In this fourth outing, there simply isn't more to be said. Granted, there are a few funny bits, most of which involve Sid, but I’m not sure that a few gags here and there are worth the cost of admission. Unless the studio heads at Fox come up with a truly fresh approach to the franchise, I’ll be happy for them to take some time off for the series. 

2 out of 5 Stars