Ice Age: Continental Drift

When I think about the animated films of this year, I must say that none of the major studios have disappointed. Pixar created the pretty good Brave, although expectations were a bit higher. Madagascar 3 from DreamWorks is certainly not a flop, as we'll discuss below, and finally, Ice Age 4: Continental Drift also didn’t disappoint. In fact, I’d almost say that it’s the fourth Ice Age that turned out the best. I know that fourth installments aren’t always very successful, but that doesn’t apply in this case. We encounter not only familiar faces but also discover new critters that impact the story to varying degrees. It’s nice that we learn more about Sid, even though we don’t spend much time with his family. We follow the fates of all the main characters. Diego has to deal with love, while Manny grapples with having a teenage daughter. It’s very pleasant how the characters evolve, and we learn something new about them. This time, we witness how a small squirrel—everyone knows her—causes a shift in the land. This shift significantly affects the fates of the characters, who end up at sea because of it. Manny must return to his family, and of course, Diego and Sid help him. Sid’s grandmother joins the adventure to keep things interesting, and there’s also a gang of pirates. It sounds exaggerated, but it really isn’t. The jokes are good, surprisingly both the situational and the conversational ones. It was a very nice surprise for me, as I didn’t expect much from the fourth installment. By the way, the animation is excellent, and there’s little to criticize about it. (01/03/2013)

Everything may work as we're used to, but this series should have ended with the third instalment, which catapulted it back to the top after a miserable sequel and would have secured an orderly and honourable retirement. The fourth one is still entertaining and especially the sloth Sid dubbed by the amazing Labuš is outrageously brilliant, but it has an insultingly stupid story, boring secondary characters (except for Granny) and the level of moralising and family sycophancy has gone beyond the limit. The only thing for which the creators deserve some praise is once again the squirrel Scrat, who not only has not tired me yet, but even entertains me more from episode to episode. If only the whole thing was like that... 60% (28/06/2012)

Well, this was a total miss. Incredibly unfunny, I’d even say cringeworthy, and boring. I kept checking my watch to see how much time was left from the twentieth minute onwards, that’s how bored I was. Definitely the worst installment of the whole series, with a story that wasn’t handled very well, and about thirty characters whose problems you couldn’t care less about. The only sure thing in the previous installments was the squirrel, but it didn’t do much for this part. This movie is just utterly useless and only there to fill the producers’ pockets, but the resulting quality is lame. I would say it's the same disappointment as Madagascar 3, but even though Ice Age had decent animation and soundtrack, it was still pathetic compared to Madagascar. Overall, I'd probably give it a “Boo!” rating, but now that I think about it, I may have laughed once, so 0.5 stars and one of the worst movies of this year! (01/11/2012)

Even though it's already the fourth time, I still had a lot of fun with the latest journey of our familiar group and the still very desperate hunt for the nut. The funniest characters for me, besides Scrat, were of course Sid and his dangerously tenacious grandmother, who, unlike the grandmother from Madagascar, was a tolerable character. Otherwise, the visuals were really nice, I'll give it that, and the script was also well-written, apart from a few minor bugs (it's for a younger audience than me, after all). All in all, I'm happy with the result, but I don't know if I want to see another Ice Age, I'd rather see a new and "original" animated film again, and from the same creators. (02/07/2012)

I liked it. I'd punish someone extra harshly for the mammoth teenagers, but otherwise Ice Age: Continental Drift is a pleasant, funny watch. The animation was again a bit more advanced (the amazingly handled water), the pirate theme, which I was a bit afraid of because of the current "over-pirating" in film, was fine and imaginative in the end, and the action scenes were spectacular (Emmerich's 2012 rag). Yes, the story could have been less dull (who falls in love with whom, who understands what in the end... etc.), but what the hell, I had a good time.__P.S. Acorn Atlantis was perfect.__P.P.S. John Powell's music is also funny, this time "borrowing" Beethoven's “Ode to Joy". (15/07/2012)