Ice Age: Continental Drift

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FILM REVIEW: ICE AGE: CONTINENTAL DRIFT

By Michael Phillips

Tribune Newspapers Critic

2 stars

First came the God particle, the Higgs boson. Then came ``Ice Age (2002). Then, ``Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006). Then ``Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009). And now arrives ``Ice Age: Continental Drift, informally known as ``Ice Age 4, also known as a paycheck and a likely haul for all involved at Blue Sky Studios and 20th Century Fox.

The new picture contains a valuable lesson in recycling. It opens with what I believe is a slightly abridged version of ``Scrat's Continental Crack-Up, the ``Ice Age short Fox showed in front of the Jack Black ``Gulliver's Travels two years ago. Preteens might not know the word ``rerun, since it belongs to B.C. (before cable) days of yore, but it's time they learned it.

Another chunk of ``Ice Age 4, with the key characters getting thrashed in the waves, is a recycling job as well, footage from a short preceding ``Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked. You know what I feel like doing right now? I feel like digging out an old review of an earlier ``Ice Age movie and ``re-purposing it, which will give me time to go do something else for a few minutes, like mow the lawn or water the lawn. Or bake a crumble.

``Ice Age 4 separates the woolly mammoth Manny (Ray Romano) from his family, for a while, as the land masses creak and groan, though not as loudly as the script's jokes, especially the ones ending in the word ``booger or ``puke. The saber-toothed tiger Diego (Denis Leary) finds a mate, voiced by Jennifer Lopez. John Leguizamo's sloth, Sid, becomes caretaker of his abandoned grandmother. Peter Dinklage voices a nasty pirate orangutan. The tone of the banter in ``Ice Age 4 is wearying sarcasm punctuated by frequent death-threats and pummelings and 3-D action sequences that reduce the entire experience to a sledding run.

The actors do what they can, because that's what they're paid to do, damn it, although in a sequel such as ``Ice Age 4 much of the acting comes to something other than voice-over work. It's more like whoooaaaaaa!-over work. Big wave coming! ``Whooooaaaaaa! The directors Steve Martino and Michael Thurmeier keep it moving.

It's not very funny, but your kids might like it. For the record.

MPAA rating: PG (for mild rude humor and action/peril).

Running time: 1:27.

Voice Cast: Ray Romano (Manny); Denis Leary (Diego); John Leguizamo (Sid); Queen Latifa (Ellie); Jennifer Lopez (Shira); Aziz Ansari (Squint); Nicki Minaj (Steffie); Peter Dinklage (Captain Gutt).

Credits: Directed by Mike Thurmeier and Steve Martino; written by Jason Fuchs, Michael Berg and Mike Reiss, produced by John C. Donkin and Lori Forte. A 20th Century Fox release.

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