Ice Age: Continental Drift : Movie Review


There is something most definitely amiss when a four-and-a-half-minute short has more laughs, wit, sweetness and creativity than the feature-length main attraction that succeeds it. Such is the case with the utterly delightful "The Longest Daycare," which finds "The Simpsons" toddler Maggie attending the Ayn Rand School for Tots and trying to save a butterfly from the bug-smashing hands of a class nemesis. From the Raggedy Ayn Rand dolls on display to Maggie being placed in the "Nothing Special" corner after ranking with average intelligence, this brief little movie is a pure joy in the way that it manages to remain so amusing and heartwarming even as it pushes its own acerbic boundaries time and again. That is not the case with "Ice Age: Continental Drift," which flatly lumbers along after the short like some wicked joke Blue Sky Studios and 20th Century Fox have decided to play on their audience. For a series that wasn't particularly inspired to begin with and hasn't done anything to deviate from the tired formula, this fourth entry feels especially desperate. Directors Steve Martino (2008's "Horton Hears a Who!") and Mike Thurmeier (2009's "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs") and their writers, Michael Berg and Jason Fuchs, manage one clever line in all 87 minutes, spoken by Sid the sloth (voiced by John Leguizamo): "We fought dinosaurs in the ice age. It didn't make sense, but it sure was exciting!" Copping to blatant historical inaccuracy at least exhibits a sense of humor. It's just too bad that said sense of humor is usually so far off the mark from what's legitimately funny.

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Author : Dustin Putman