Movie Reviews

I've really enjoyed pretty much all of the computer-generated "cartoons" that have been released in the last few years (except Final Fantasy... though I guess that wouldn't classify as a "cartoon"). I suppose with the amount of money that goes into creating them, the scripts generally have to be good in order for them to get produced.

So yeah, Ice Age is a really entertaining, funny movie (though I didn't enjoy it quite as much as Monster's Inc.). The story's pretty simple: an unlikely pairing of a whooly mammoth and a sloth try to return a human baby to it's "tribe," all the while being stalked by a pack of sabre-tooth tigers intent on capturing the baby for revenge against the humans who have killed off a number of other tigers in their pack. One of these tigers eventually joins the mammoth and the sloth, pretending to be leading the group to the humans, but secretly plotting to lead them into an ambush by the other tigers.

The best parts of the movie, though, involve Scrat, a speechless rodent-type-thing who has no relevance to the rest of the story but who is really amusing as he occasionally appears and tries desperately to bury an acorn before the winter arrives. I wish there had been more with him... thankfully the DVD has a bonus animated short movie, "Scrat's New Adventure." :-)

For the most part, the animation in Ice Age is really amazing. I guess if I had one problem with the movie, though, it's that the humans looked kind've funny. I don't know if they were going for a sort of Cro-Magnon look to them or something, but it was just odd.