Susan Granger’s review of “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” (20th Century Fox)
Fun is far from extinct in this third installment in the prehistoric franchise, the first to use the now-popular 3-D technology. But it’s like a friendly visit with old friends rather than exploring new territory.
As the story begins, Manny (voiced by Ray Romano), the neurotic, overprotective woolly mammoth, and his mate Ellie (voiced by Queen Latifah) are busy preparing for the birth of their first offspring. Diego (voiced by Denis Leary), the saber-toothed tiger, takes off on his own, fearing that domesticity has rendered him unable to hunt even the simplest of prey. As a result, Sid the sloth (John Leguizamo) is feeling a bit abandoned, so he swipes three huge eggs he finds under the ice and ‘adopts’ the newly hatched dinosaurs. Problem is: that understandably infuriates the enormous Mommy Dino who kidnaps Sid and takes him beneath the frozen tundra into a perilous subterranean world filled with T-Rexes, raptors, flying pterodactyls and carnivorous plants. So his friends Manny, Diego, Ellie and the opossums Eddie (Josh Peck) and Crash (Seann William Scott) band together to brave danger in order to save Sid. Of course, the hyperactive squirrel Scrat (voiced by Chris Wedge) is back, still chasing that elusive acorn, but now distracted by a scrambling female, Scratte, on the same quest.
Short on originality and long on action, this “threequel” returns to the familiar terrain of “The Land Before Time” and “The Lost World” with director Carlos Saldanha adding a new character: a wigged-out warrior weasel named Buck (voiced by Simon Pegg).
Using 3-D does enhance the depth and detail of Blue Sky’s CGI imagery, as paws, claws, beaks and snouts seem to extend off the screen. If that gets too intense for tiny tots, just have them jettison the glasses. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” is a frigidly sluggish, yet familiarly diverting 5 – and the forecast includes spectacular sales when it comes out on dvd.
