Ice Age: Continental Drift

In 2002 Fox released Ice Age a cheap and nasty looking CGI family film which turned out to be well above average. Ten years later we are on the fourth instalment of this surprisingly successful franchise with Ice Age: Continental Drift.

PLOT: After rowing with his teenage daughter Peaches (Keke Palmer) Manny (Ray Romano), Sid (John Leguizamo) and Diego (Denis Leary) find themselves stranded on a block of floating ice. As they drift out to sea they meet Captain Gutt (Peter Dinklage) who is determined that the trio join his crew. END PLOT

It was crystal clear from the very first Ice Age that theses films are not geographically or historically accurate. If after four films you still have a problem with this I challenge you to voice your opinion without being an obnoxious arse.

The plot bulldozes along at break neck speed with father/daughter problems and family abandonment issues being brushed over so that the main adventure can begin. The story is unnecessarily complicated because there are now far too many characters involved.

The main adventure with Manny, Sid and Diego was constantly broken up due to the teen drama with Peaches and her mammoth friends. Granny (voiced by the annoying Wanda Sykes) was not amusing and her scenes should have been minimal.

Whenever the main trio were not on screen together the film did drag. The problem was they were never on screen together long enough to have any real comedic impact.

The humour is scattered throughout the film but unfortunately it isn’t particularly strong although were treated to a very decent little sea shanty by Captain Gutt.

Ray Romano and John Leguizamo were as dependable as ever but Denis Leary, Queen Latifa and Jennifer Lopez were all underused and Seann William Scott and Josh Peck had absolutely nothing to do.

I am a fan of the franchise and I have no doubt that there will be a fifth but they really need to trim the cast down significantly as this offering was definitely the most bloated and sadly the weakest of them all.

Ice Age: Continental Drift was a disappointment and it only gets a 5/10. It could have been the worst film ever but I will still go back for more as I have a real soft spot for the original trio.