Ice Age 2: Meltdown is the follow up to the highly successful Ice Age, an animated movie made in 2002 and one of my all-time favourite animated movies. Unlike the previous movie, Meltdown concentrates solely on the animals – not a human in sight – as they come to terms with impending disaster with their icy world about to melt from under their feet.

Once again the main characters are Manny the mammoth, a rather gruff but kind-hearted animal with a tragic history; Diego the sabre-tooth tiger, who has became kind-hearted in the previous movie but isn’t exactly known for his tolerance; and Sid the sloth, the irritating character that all cartoons seem to feel they must have. His quest for respect from… well, anyone, is a major theme in Meltdown.

Added to the trio above are two mischievous possums, Crash and Eddie, small and seemingly indestructible, and their sister Ellie… who believes herself to be a possum but is in fact… well, you’ll have to find out for yourself. Of the ancillary characters, the only one of real note is Fast Tony (voiced by Jay Leno), a shelled creature who is always on the lookout for a profit.

With the ice melting there is only one hope for the animals – a boat rumoured to be at the far end of their little world. Can they get to it in time? Is Manny really the last of the mammoths? Will Sid ever get the respect he craves – or will he get eaten by someone he’s annoyed?

Ice Age 2: Meltdown has many things going for it – the storyline is completely separate from the first Ice Age, so it doesn’t really feel like a sequel / continuation apart from featuring the same characters. The computer animation is of course terrific – the visuals at times look stunning, but it’s the little details that truly stand out as superb – tiny adjustments of facial muscles to reflect emotions, the fluid movement of muscles as the animals walk, the fact that a mammoth running looks very ungainly, and the tremendous depth of feeling conveyed by characters’ eyes. The storyline is well paced (though perhaps a touch too slow at times) with plenty of frantic action sequences and al lot of funny moments. (Poor old Scrat is back on his eternal quest to keep that acorn, and even more cruelly funny ways are found to deny him.) The voice acting is well up to scratch, for me Ray Romano as Many was the best, his voice really conveyed the character’s depth of feeling. (Ok, so Manny is the only character that really has any depth, but he still voices him superbly.) Queen Latifah is perfect as Ellie while Sean William Scott and Josh Peck as the possum brothers have a lot of fun with their roles. Oh, and the vultures doing the traffic reports of the moving animals were hilarious, and there were some very amusing and surprising musical numbers!

As for the negatives, there aren’t many but I did feel that there was an over-reliance on the annoying Sid for laughs, which really stopped the film being as funny as it could have been. Not that I have anything against Sid but he monopolises too much screen time away from more interesting characters. I’ve never been taken as much with Scrat as other people seem to have been, and even though his adventures in pursuit of his beloved acorn are funny, he does hog a disproportionate amount of screen time too. Finally – and this doesn’t really apply if you haven’t seen the first Ice Age - some of the jokes really are a little old.

Overall though, Ice Age 2: Meltdown is an animated movie that all the family can enjoy, with a few jokes that children won’t understand much thrown in to keep the adults amused. It’s good clean fun, may even teach the kids a few good lessons about friendship etc, and will have everyone laughing. To me it isn’t quite 5 stars (pretty close – maybe 4.25 stars), and though it’s certainly not a terrible sequel, I didn’t enjoy it as much as the first film. If you liked the first or like animated movies in general though, Ice Age 2: Meltdown is one you shouldn’t miss!

The MPAA rating is PG for some mild language and innuendo. (It really is very mild – in fact the UK rating is U – Universal)

Quote of the film: after an elaborate dance sequence which ends in him getting tied up, Sid says: “This is either really good or really bad.”



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Top Ten Animated Movies


See also: My Top Ten Movies of 2006


Recommended: Yes