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Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs Movie Review

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is a 2009 animated adventure comedy film directed by Carlos Saldanha. This Blue Sky Studios sequel is quite solid overall.

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“Buck, when exactly did you lose your mind?“

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Yes, after a middling sequel that surely was ‘The Meltdown’, Dawn of the Dinosaurs is a marked improvement. In fact, it is by far the best Ice Age sequel of them all as it’s at least entertaining, amusing and adventurous in some areas while still of course being too hectic in pacing.

The crew finds the dinosaurs beneath the ice while Sid struggles being a parent of some baby dinosaurs. The plot is slim and of course it was silly to include dinosaurs in an Ice Age movie, but this is a fun cartoon not to be taken seriously, and I ultimately liked their inclusion as it led to a different plot than usual for the franchise. The storytelling isn’t great here, but at least the movie is suitably adventurous and fun.

Sid is excellent here. This is one of the franchise’s best roles for him as he tries his hand at parenting, and actually proves to be solid at it. I love when the series treats him in a more complex manner than just as an idiot with this being a great example of that. Unfortunately, Manny and Diego, though they have their moments, are so underutilized with very little screen time.

That is the problem with this entire franchise. They keep adding new characters into the mix while forgetting the old favorites, which really bothers me personally. Crash and Eddie continue to be obnoxious and Buck as this dashing weasel is so one-note that he becomes really annoying. The strong emphasis on him frustrated him. But at least Scrat continues to be awesome as some of his scenes here are crazy and so much fun.

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Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs features excellent animation with the dinosaurs being particularly well designed and depicted. I liked the colorful palette here along with very solid world building. The movie is unfortunately horribly paced as the second half becomes ridiculously fast, and thus quite boring, but at least the first half was engaging.

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs does feature a very annoying new character in the form of one-note Buck as the franchise continued to add new unnecessary characters instead of utilizing on the old favorites. The second half is also too hectic. But the first half is a lot of fun, the movie is suitably adventurous and very well animated while Sid is particularly memorable in this entry. It’s clearly the best Ice Age sequel.

My Rating – 3.5

You can get the entire Ice Age franchise on Amazon.