Four stars. Rating: PG, for action peril and mild rude humor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.13.12
Chris Wedge deserves a great deal
of credit.
During the decade since he
co-directed Ice Age, back in 2002 , the series has generated three sequels,
each of which has been as fresh, funny and visually enchanting as the first
film.
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| Manny, right, watches in horror as he drifts farther away from his family, with no hope of rejoining them. Diego, left, shares his large friend's concern; even the usually frivolous Sid understands the gravity of their situation. Sooner or later, their ice floe will start to melt... |
DreamWorks’ Shrek series (as
one other example) hasn’t been nearly as consistent, with the same number of
installments; Wedge, his Blue Sky Studios colleagues and their “sub-zero
heroes” have scored runs with every turn at bat.
In no small measure, this is
because Wedge and his rotating teams of scripters understand the importance of
story. Each new film doesn’t feel like a box office-driven remake of the same
basic plot elements, as often happens with lesser sequels; the “Ice Age”
entries build on each other, forming distinct chapters of a much broader
narrative whose limits have yet to be reached.
Plus, Blue Sky’s films are funny.
Very funny.
And more than a little
subversive.
Way back in the day, Disney’s
animated features and cartoon shorts were acclaimed for their lush, painterly
animation; backdrops and characters were beautiful, gentle and well-rounded,
like a live-action sequence shot with a soft-focus lens. Disney animated
scripts, as well, were gentle and family-friendly.
Warner Bros. cartoon shorts, in
marked contrast, relied more on jagged lines and harsh angles, which contributed
to a more daring tone that complemented the equally edgy and snarky scripts.
You’d never find a cross-dressing character in a Disney cartoon, but if it
suited a gag to have Bugs Bunny in drag, then the carrot-chomping rabbit would
don a dress.
I view the stylistic difference
between Pixar and Blue Sky in somewhat the same light. Both companies recognize
the all-important blend of strong scripting and eye-pleasing visuals, but
approach this recipe with different attitudes. Pixar films, like classic Disney
films, are gorgeous to the point of looking frameable, with storylines that are
similarly mainstream.
Blue Sky, alternatively, often
relies on the same sort of exaggerated sight gags that Warner Bros. employed
every time Wile E. Coyote got trapped by one of his own roadrunner-catching
gadgets. The best and funniest ongoing example: the many torments and
body-disfiguring catastrophes endured by poor Scrat, in his endless search for
the next best acorn.
As has been true with each Ice
Age installment, Scrat’s hilarious escapades serve as “bumpers” between
significant events in the central narrative experienced by an ever-expanding
cast of major characters.
Scrat’s attempt to bury an acorn
in a frozen ice bank sets off a chain of tectonic events that proves calamitous
for all our other prehistoric animal friends ... and, incidentally, separates
Earth’s land masses into the seven continents we know today.
A particularly nasty seismic
shift separates Manny the mammoth (Ray Romano), Diego the sabertooth tiger
(Denis Leary) and Sid the slobbering sloth (John Leguizamo) from the rest of
their “mixed herd.” When last seen by everybody else, Manny, Diego and Sid are
drifting away from land on an ocean-bound chunk of ice. Also along for the
ride: Sid’s denture-challenged Granny (Wanda Sykes).
Back on land, with an advancing
mountainous wall threatening to push everybody into the sea, Manny’s better
half, Ellie (Queen Latifah), and their headstrong teenage daughter, Peaches
(Keke Palmer), organize the others into a rapid march to a nearby “land bridge”
that will lead to safety. Trouble-prone possums Crash and Eddie (Seann William
Scott and Josh Peck) mindlessly embrace this continental crack-up as another
great adventure, while newcomer Louis — a mole hog voiced by Josh Gad (imagine
a prehistoric meerkat) — takes a warier view.
Louis has a huge (if impractical)
crush on Peaches, who treats him only as a best friend; she’s potty for the
self-absorbed Ethan (hip-hop star Drake), the local Big Mammoth on Campus.
Prior to their seismic-induced separation, Manny and his headstrong daughter
butted heads over her coming of age issues; indeed, the bonds of family — in
many different variations — keep this story’s loving heart beating throughout
increasingly dire events.
Although being adrift in the
ocean would be bad enough, things get much worse when Manny, Granny, Sid and
Diego encounter a rag-tag pirate crew — aboard a giant ice ship — led by a
fearsome, wickedly clawed orangutan dubbed Gutt (Peter Dinklage). The name,
Gutt cheerfully explains to his new captives, results from his ability to “turn
your innards into your outards.”
Gutt’s varied crew includes first
mate Flynn (Nick Frost), a jiggly, giggly elephant seal; Squint (Aziz Ansari),
an over-caffeinated bunny with a Napoleon complex; Raz (Rebel Wilson), a
prehistoric kangaroo with a penchant for weapons; and Gupta (Kunal Nayyar), a
prehistoric badger whose skull-and-crossbones-patterned fur makes him a perfect
ship’s pennant.
Oh, and Shira (Jennifer Lopez), a
cunning, sexy female sabertooth who immediately views Diego as a challenge to
be bested.
Raise your hands, class: How many
believe, after three films as a loner, that Diego is about to fall in love?
Gutt is determined to conscript
the new arrivals; Manny is equally determined to return — somehow — to his
family. Needless to say, things don’t proceed as anybody expects. Subsequent
events unfold in distinct, well-paced acts, with co-directors Steve Martino
(Horton Hears a Who) and Mike Thurmeier (Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs)
deftly cross-cutting between the two separated sets of characters.
Each act has its own quite
satisfying minor crisis and partial resolution, with everything building to an
exciting climax. Scripters Michael Berg and Jason Fuchs definitely know how to
establish, maintain and build our emotional investment.
Along the way, we’re equally
involved with inter-personal issues, such as Diego’s efforts to talk Shira away
from the dark side, and Peaches’ thoughtless snub of poor little Louis. And
then there’s the mystery of Granny’s “Precious,” a pet she keeps feeding on the
sly, but which nobody else has ever seen.
With a voice cast this talented —
and this laden with masters of split-second comic timing — it’s difficult to
single out one performance over another. Leguizamo continues to be a stitch as
the speech-mangling Sid, particularly when stricken by paralysis-inducing
berries; Sykes is every bit as funny as the similarly saliva-spewing Granny.
Romano remains the eternally
put-upon husband he played so well on his own TV series, with an equally
clueless view of fatherhood thrown in for good measure. Dinklage is
impressively nasty and ferocious as the villainous Gutt, while Gad grants the
diminutive Louis a sense of nobility that far outstrips his size.
Scott and Peck are always a hoot
as Crash and Eddie, and, yes, Lopez is appropriately seductive and shrewd as
Shira.
Scrat — whose frenzied shrieks
and moans are voiced now, as always, by Wedge himself — provokes gut-busting
laughter at every turn.
Martino, Thurmeier and
cinematographer Renato Falcao make excellent use of this film’s 3-D imaging,
with exhilarating sequences that justify the premium admission price. John
Powell’s rip-roaring score adds to the frantic action, while also nicely
complementing (for example) gentler moments between father and daughter
mammoths.
In all respects, Ice Age:
Continental Drift is a hilarious, suspenseful and inventively amusing romp,
with a strong emotional core. I can’t wait for Part Five.
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