Nothing to care about except the money - Ice Age: The Meltdown Reviews

The original "Ice Age," coming amid a flood of hugely popular Pixar and Dreamworks releases, was a well-written story that made you care about its characters. You understood the motivation for each one's actions, which created compelling interactions that resulted in a beautiful ending. "Ice Age 2?" It's all about the money. As in the money that sequals of successful films can generate. My advice? Don't bother. Not in the theater, not on pay-per-view, and not even on DVD. Every situation in "Ice Age 2" seems utterly contrived. Each actor (or at least their voices) sound as if they are going through the motions (the worst in Denis Leary's Diego). The peril that drive's the film's story is no longer character motivation, but the artificial contrivance of a flood because it seems that the only place all the animals are living is an ice-dammed valley. Can you say "Hokey?" The supposed humor of Queen Latifah's new mammoth character believing she is a possum seems solely to support the two real nwe possum characters, which are supposed to be the slapstick comedy there in case you get tired of the Scrat vignettes (not difficult), but are little more than tiresome. Sure, there were a couple of brief laugh-out-loud moments, but upon walking out of the theater, they were easily forgettable. (Compare that to the subversively gay hippopotomuses in the original "Ice Age," which still bring a smile years later.) The original "Ice Age" was a good *story,* with elements of humor that flowed naturally from that story. "Ice Age 2" is bits and pieces of slapdash frivolity that don't fit well together. Worse, there's nothing here to really *care* about, and so the whole thing becomes a pointless exercise. My advice? Skip this farce of a movie and hold out for "Cars" this summer and "The Simpsons" movie next summer.