Academic

On a rainy Saturday, the two older kids and I decided to go see the latest Ice Age installment.  I can't say that either of my kids are big Ice Age fans (I think we have the first on DVD, but no one has watched it in years), but they are big fans of the 3-D!  So, those Real D people are geniuses, and not just for coming up with glasses that stay on your face.  The movie isn't one that has to be told in 3D -- I wouldn't say that the action calls for it or anything like that, but it does look cool.  Sort of like going from regular cable to HD.  It may be hard to go back some day!

Anyway, although we weren't there for the plot, just the glasses, the movie was ok.  The best part of the movie was a new character "Buck," who's sort of like Captain Jack Sparrow for the movie:  heroic, funny, and more than a little "off."  The premise of the movie is that Sid the Sloth stumbles into a tropical world underneath the ice that houses a few missing links from the dinosaur era.  So, no, the movie doesn't completely ignore the geological timeline by putting dinos and mammoths and saber-tooth tigers together -- it just creates an imaginary "land of the lost."  This is actually good visually for the movie because the lush greenery makes for a prettier setting than the stark ice and snow.  It's more colorful than the brown and white palette of ice, mammoths and sloths.

I really didn't like the movie though, because to me it seemed like an animated "Knocked Up," which was not my favorite movie.  (Funny how boy-wonder directors like to make movies where chubby, unemployed, ambitionless guys find themselves living happily after ever with extremely attractive women with a lot going for them.)  Anyway, in Ice Age, Manny the Mammoth's mate for life is having a baby, which makes him turn into uber-Dad, alienating the males in his "herd."  Diego, the tiger, thinks domestic life is making him lose his edge, so he's taking off.  Sid, the sloth, decides he's going to go out on his own, then adopts three dinosaur eggs, which he mistakenly thinks are abandoned.  Even though he's clearly ill-equipped for the job, he thinks he can be a "mama" if everyone else is having babies.  Once "Momzilla" returns for her three dinos, he takes on the lingo of the non-custodial parents, which is slightly uncomfortable.  Perhaps I'm over-reacting, but the whole undertone of the movie was one of young people toying with the idea of parenthood, maturity and commitment.  None of these topics is one that my 7 year-old boy thinks about at all, so it seemed bizarre that Sid the Sloth turns into a caricature of Levi Johnston.  The stated premise is that the herd has to rescue Sid from the dangers that lurk in this anachronistic paradise, but these dangers are fleeting and the action is sort of spotty.

Even the squirrel, the usual comedy relief of the franchise, who frustratingly chases his elusive acorn like Wile E. Coyote, falls for a female squirrel.  After some bliss in the tropical paradise, he grows weary of her domestic Honey-Do list, and falls victim to the siren call of the acorn once again.

Oh, and I finally realized that the 3D showings are $2.50 more than the regular showings.  (Didn't I say those Real D people were genuises?)