Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009)

Genre

Adventure | Animation | Comedy

Directors

Carlos Saldanha | Mike Thurmeier

Country

USA

Voice Cast

Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, Sean William Scott, Josh Peck, Queen Latifah, Simon Pegg, Chris Wedge, Karen Disher, Bill Hader, Joey King, Jane Lynch, Kristen Wiig, Carlos Saldanha, Eunice Cho, Maile Flanagan, Clea Lewis, Devika Parikh

Storyline

After stealing three dinosaur eggs, Sid (John Leguizamo) is abducted by their real mother to an underground lost world, and his friends attempts to rescue him.

Opinion

I don't say it often because it rarely happens, but at the third installment of the franchise Blue Sky doesn't misfire and delivers another good animated film. "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" indeed is a nice and entertaining film that appeals both kids and adults (if possible I think I like it even more now that I'm an adult).

Once again, the story is quite simple and easy to follow and it's executed quite well. The whole dinosaurs idea is quite interesting, and I don't care how unrealistic that is, this is a cartoon after all.

Maybe this time the screenwriters worked too much to create all those subplots. The romantic subplot involving Scrat and the female Scratte is nice and has a lot of funny moments, but some others don't have a place in the film. The pregnancy subplot, for example, doesn't have any purpose.

But those little flaws can be forgiven thanks to the characters. Even though Diego has been basically watered down into cameo quality, a new entry steals the show, Simon Pegg's Buck, a looney weasel who joins the herd halfway through. When he makes his entrance, the film completely changes. The earlier few dead moments are replaced with funny ones, and I believe it's impossible not to fall in love with the characters.

There are a lot of jokes and visual gags. The animation is great - I remember watching it in 3D when it came out and it was great. And it's good in 2D as well. And the voice cast does a good job. And yes, I loved Simon Pegg.