Ice Age 3; Dawn of the Dinosaurs

Three-quels are only rarely thrilling; and the bones of those that tried and failed are everywhere; Pirates of the Carribean 3, Shrek 3 and…(shudder) The Godfather 3… Luckily, Ice Age 3 is not as desperate as the aforementioned, but it certainly lacks the magic spark of the first two Ice Ages. Part of the problem is that the action in this film feels so forced; Syd gets captured by a giant T Rex after stealing her eggs, and so the whole crew, including a pregnant Ellie, goes looking for him. Not only is it tough to care that Syd gets captured, but it is tough to feel that he didn’t deserve capture, and once you’ve accepted that, you realize that if the T Rex didn’t eat him at once…he probably isn’t in that much danger anyways. The addition of a new stock character, Buckminster, livens things up a bit, but doesn’t make you care about what happens to these characters, and this despite the fact that this tale has all the sap and gooey-ness of the La Brea Tar Pits. The lone ray of sunshine is Scrat, the saber-toothed squirrel, who manically dances his way around the dinosaur kingdom (figuratively and literally this time) in search of the nut that is his soulmate. But sadly, while Scrat lights up the screen, the flickers of the most excellent Scrat are too few and far between to truly enlighten the whole film, and we are left waiting for the end of the film ...and the re-dawning of the Age of Aquarius.