Ice Age: Continental Drift

Anyone looking for an excuse to get the kids in the theater have a new one now in Ice Age: Continental Drift, which is the fourth Prehistoric cartoon comedy. I'm guessing that it'll be a hit with kids. For everyone else, it's the equivalent of a once funny joke now old.

Want to know what I mean?

Scrat, the nutty Sabretooth Squirrel, has gone too far. In an opening sequence that debuted as a stand-alone cartoon (which played with such films as Rio and Mr. Popper's Penguins), the little rodent chases his beloved acorn into the Earth's core. He inadvertantly causes Pangea to split apart into the current continents.

And he has no idea of the apocalypse he caused.

But Manny the Mammoth (Ray Romano), Diego the Smilodon (Denis Leary) and Sid the Sloth (John Leguizamo) do. Now seperated from their friends and family, and on a tiny iceburg as a raft, their mission is to get back to land. Their mission is impeded by the pirate baboon Captain Gutt (Peter Dinklage) and his crew.

There were at least a few funny moments. One of them was a silly musical number for Gutt and his crew. But a lot of the funny stuff was already shown in the ads. On screen, they weren't supremely funny. Just average.

Available on both 3D and Flatscreen, this film's animation is its best asset. The scenery, and the characters who inhabit it, are greatly colorful and detailed. Its animated set pieces, such as the heroes' travel through a storm, were meant for the big screen. This is a good film to look at.

Either format you choose, you still get to see Maggie Simpson in a 2D short, The Longest Daycare. That was the best part of an otherwise formulaic film.