ANIMATION; 1hr 34min
VOICES BY: Ray Romano, Denis Leary, John Leguizamo, Jennifer Lopez, Queen Latifah
Get the drift? From left, Sid, Diego and Manny
Any franchise that has earned itself a 4 is arguably doing something right. In the boisterous case of Ice Age, Inc., that something would be the elastic bond between fatherly woolly mammoth Manny (voiced by Romano), acerbic sabre-toothed tiger Diego (Leary) and goofball sloth Sid (Leguizamo). Not to mention acorn-fixated Scrat (Chris Wedge), who is still at it and still getting nowhere very fast, this time with seismic consequences.
They’re polar opposites, but mammoth, tiger and sloth are resilience in action when cut loose from the mainland on a chunk of ice. Set upon by “primate pirate” Captain Gutt (Peter Dinklage) and his menagerie of buccaneers (Lopez’s slinky sabre-fanged femme is First Mate) and drifting ever further from Manny’s stalwart wife (Latifah) and teenage daughter (Keke Palmer), the loopy three fight for survival — in a bubbly, multicoloured and totally non-threatening way. At its liveliest, the kerfuffle is perpetual motion in overdrive and the voice cast is psyched. There’s not a highbrow landmark in sight, but there’s also something to be said for keeping it completely unreal.
