Review of Ice Age (2002) by Devin P — 24 Sep 2012

Starts brilliantly with a 4-minute short film of sorts as a sabre-toothed squirrel tries to bury an acorn in a glacier. In fact this sequence *is* essentially the short film that got opted into this feature which borrows conventions and characters from earlier, better animated movies.

The squirrel shows up briefly several more times for quick comedy hits, but the rest of the time we are saddled with the journey of a slovenly sloth irritatingly voiced by John Leguizamo. Imagine watching The Phantom Menace with Jar-Jar Binks as the MAIN character - yeah, it's like that.

Ray Romano tries to deflect some of the sting with a quality characterization of a gruff mammoth, his traveling companion. The decade-old digital animation shows its age, which still works for the primitive landscapes but further reduces the already emotionless humans to blocky clones with different colored clothing.

Certainly more enjoyable for the 7-to-14 target audience, but adults and Jar-Jar haters alike beware and dig up the original short instead.