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Techtite's DVD Reviews! |
"Although I'm still waiting for a movie that's 100% "Scrat," this film is a lot of fun, and is even superior to the original film." --from the review ------------- Sidebar :: ------------- No sidebar comments for this review. Yet...
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Ice Age: The Meltdown
Click picture to order this DVD (Widescreen) Also available in Full Screen, HERE. A Review by TechtiteAs always, a review of The Film and the DVD extras. The Film: Ice Age 2 is one of those sequels that is surprisingly good. "Surprisingly" is, with all due respects, putting it mildly. Aside from that hilarious prehistoric squirrel named "Scrat," there really wasn't much to the original Ice Age. Yet I'd not only recommend this film to those who liked the original film; I'd recommend it even to those who didn't like the original at all, with a sequel story that is fresh, witty, and pretty inspired. The story gets its strength from its simplicity; the end of the ice age is nigh, and for our heroes, this is bad. See; the lands they live in are surrounded by mountains of ice, which will flood the land when melted. For reasons that you shouldn't strain your brain to figure out, one of the vultures recommends that all the animals migrate to a giant petrified log atop a hill nearby, which will float everyone to safety. That's fair enough. While this is a simple story, it is the perfect stage for this film. All you need to know is that our heroes needed some reason to journey onward, allowing each of them to face different mini-adventures. The sloth Sid comes across a tribe of "mini" Sid's, as it were, who worship Sid because he was able to make fire. Manny the Mammoth comes across a female mammoth who has been raised by possums. For added amusement; she thinks she's a possum herself. As for saber-toothed tiger Diego, he is a cat, and therefore is afraid of water, making this impending flood a major fear for him. It's also a fear he must overcome, if he wants to help his friends. Ask not whatever happened to that little lost baby our heroes saved in the first film; he is home, and home is apparently far, far, away, so that's that. The challenge of getting a lost baby back to his home has passed. No; this story's challenges lie in what is encased within the ice. Apparently that includes some very nasty sea creatures of the "Jurassic Park" variety, with one resembling a giant shark and another a giant crocodile. Let's just say that they're thawed, they're hungry and with the impending flood, they're now fully mobile. Are these two new adversaries too frightening for little kids? I doubt it. Most likely, your kids will be too busy laughing. It's a funny enough visual gag when you see a female mammoth acting like a possum, especially when she's trying to sleep by hanging from a tree with her tail. The tribe of little sloth creatures is funny as well, and although I didn't appreciate the two possum "siblings" much myself, kids will probably love them, and that's what matters. But what really sells this Meltdown is Scrat, the squirrel. While this little long-toothed critter stole the show in the first film, here he is used much more frequently, as sort of comedy shticks between acts. Instead of saying something like "The Next Day..." or "Hours Pass..." during our heroes' journey, the action takes us back to Scrat, to see what he's up to. While people who saw the teaser and trailer already saw two of the skits with Scrat in them, they have yet to see the funniest ones, which is great. One moment the acorn is atop a lake of ice, while another moment it's fallen into the nest of eggs starting to hatch. I suppose it's of little surprise that the film wants to end the story with a hearty laugh, which of course means one last adventure for Scrat. Here's a critter so amusing he could be used in a spin-off film all by himself. Hint, hint, animators!
The DVD: Of course, for every DVD of an animated movie with a popular character, there must be the "animated short" of that character on the DVD. That said: Scrat's new animated cartoon "No Time For Nuts" is more than worth the price of this whole DVD, especially given how good the movie itself was. The tale is of Scrat uncovering (literally) a small time machine in the ice, left behind by an unfortunate time traveler. The device promptly zaps Scrat's prized acorn into the future, and Scrat follows after it. The jokes begin from there, as Scrat finds himself in medieval, ancient Rome, and additional times of history. I'll reveal no more to this animated short because some of the best jokes are really cute surprises. In short, it's simply the best DVD extra. Don't let the fact that this isn't a double-disc set sway you from being impressed with it. The film itself was around 90 minutes, after all. The typical DVD can hold over twice that much. This means that as many as, say, a dozen bonus materials can be put on the same disc. This includes no less than four DVD-player-friendly mini games for the kids, including a trivia game, "Sid's Soccer Challenge," "Who's Your Buddy?" and memory challenges. Just about every character from the movie gets their own unique featurette. Newcomers "Crash and Eddie" get a featurette about their "stunts" and "outtakes." Both they and Ellie get an additional featurette about the characters, as interpreted behind the scenes. Scrat, in addition to the new animated short, is given a "sound lab" where you can alter the sound effects of the hilarious kung-fu laden "piranha fight" from the movie. Sid is given a sing-and-dance-along, as well as a featurette about he and his voice, actor John Leguizamo. As for Diego and Manny...well, maybe next time. I guess Denis Leary and Ray Romano were unavailable for any DVD extras. Bummer. Additional extras are mostly for the parents. However, kids may find it educational to see the various "student films," with narrations that are actual facts, yet the faux "black and white" film footage is all from the actual film. Still, kids and adults alike may learn a fact or two they never knew about the squirrel, the possum, or such ice age mainstays as the saber tooth tiger and wooly mammoth. Rounding out the extras is an optional audio commentary by director Carlos Saldanha, as well as a "crew" commentary track. Rounding out the more technical "extras" is "The Animation Director's Chair," where you are given multiple angles of one animation scene. As I said; there's a lot offered on this DVD, even on just one disc.
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