Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Maggie noodle review - Ice Age : Dawn of the Dinosaurs

I have not seen the first two Ice Age movies, so I went in without any preconceived notions about this one. I knew that Ray Romano voiced the main character - a mammoth - and that was about it. I was surprised by how much of the humor was targeted towards adults but without being crude or vulgar. The characters could have been humans and it would not have made a difference. When mammoths are able to make sculptures and wind chimes as intricate as are shown in the movie, you have to suspend copious amounts of disbelief.

In the past few years, showing a T. rex seems to be the in-thing to do and this movie features one, and goes one better by showing a bigger, badder dinosaur that looks like the unfortunate product of a T. rex and a crocodile. So, naturally, an animal with an Australian accent is summoned by the scriptwriters to tackle this croc-o-saur (how they must have giggled at the scriptwriters session when this brainwave occurred to one of them).

Overall, the movie followed predictable patterns with some generic humor thrown in to make you smile all through. It is a gently-moving movie that sets out to give you a pleasant time and delivers on that promise. It is no Pixar movie, but that should not be taken as a slight against this film. If anything, this movie has found a different niche and settles well into it. Comfortably so.

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