Cast: Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Queen Latifah

Director: Carlos Saldanha

Screenplay: Michael Berg

Running time: 1 hr 34 mins

Genre: Animation/Action/Adventure



CRITIQUE:


Forget accuracy, this is not National Geographic. The sight of Pleistocene mammals co-existing alongside dinosaurs is enough to make palaeontologists and historians faint. Also forget about geographical locations. An underworld Eden hidden beneath the frozen terra firma would make geologists smash their heads against a brick wall. This is a kids’ film, for Chrissake! So we have the prehistoric gang back again for a third outing, even though in the second film the ice has already melted. But to keep the tots happy and bouncing, we are treated to a barrage of a rollicking adventure from the mountainous icy slopes down to the dinosaur abyss-cum-paradise, the paternalistic Manny the mammoth, pregnant mammoth wife Ellie and grumpy sabretooth Diego off to save sloth parent-wannabe (actually child abductor) Sid from angry Mama Dinosaur who so wants her three eggs back. It’s all good fun, but when the dust settles – the realisation takes place that there isn’t really much packed in the plot: this is a rescue mission of animals with parental issues thrown in, sidestepping both of the predecessors’ ecological thrust and rather prefer to touch on parent-child affairs. 20th Century Fox thinks they can do a Pixar. That leaves us to wonder why they had to do sequels, when Pixar doesn’t even need one.


VERDICT:

Good-natured fun, if not juvenile. But this prehistoric excursion seems like a rehash of an already-done concept from its previous efforts. And that blasted squirrel should just really get his nut, and this franchise be done with. No more sequel, please.



RATING: B-