Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

Review By: Dan Deevy
DanDeevy@TheCinemaSource.com

Movie Grade: D+

I think I’m becoming incredibly hard to please theatrically as of late. Either that or the majority of films tumbling out of Hollywood these days are significantly lacking in originality, zest and overall entertainment value. Yeah, the more I consider it, I’m pretty certain it’s the latter.

This entire summer has been filled with cookie-cutter by-the-numbers fare that all manage to make money, so the studios are happy, but artistically it all plays as the same old recycled material from 5 or 10 years ago. There are no new ideas making their way to the big multiplex screens any more. There aren’t even any new approaches to old ideas left to explore. With the happy and surprising exceptions of Star Trek, The Hangover and Up, every must see movie has disappointed me this year and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is no different.

While I haven’t seen the first two films in this animated pre-historic romp, after two minutes with this film I was able to map them out in my head and that pretty much sufficed. This movie is nothing more than 90 minutes of silly chase sequences and ‘uh-ohh-don’t-drop-it!’ moments loosely tied together by a story that my 6 year old niece could have come up with.

The new attempted draw here is all the 3-D hype. As anyone who’s read my reviews in the past knows, I hate 3-D. I find it entirely distracting to the storytelling and think that the only time it should be employed is when you need to divert your audience’s attention away from the fact that your story is weak. So, I suppose in that sense this is the perfect movie for that because the only things that did keep my eyes from shutting were the occasional snout protruding from the screen sniffing around or the jump of a huge Dino into the audience or something like that. But did it add anything to the overall enjoyment of the film for me? No.

I keep hearing claims that there is just as much ‘fun’ here for adults as there is for kids but I honestly did not see any of it. In fact, I sat there thinking I’m completely un-entertained and un-amused by everything I’m seeing and I think most kids would agree. Sure, the characters are cute and the voices are silly but I think kids are smarter than that. They may not consciously realize that a story with greater meaning and substance is missing from all of the fluff but they are aware of it. That’s why kids can watch movies like The Lion King or Finding Nemo over and over again and always come away happy after being transfixed by them. It’s also not some weird coincidence that those are the movies that also enthrall adults as well.

A steady diet of desert always sounds nice but eventually you want some meat and potatoes ...