Ice Age (2002)

Let’s tackle the story from the beginning. ‘The Ice Age’ is gorgeous to look at and sublime as a story. It was, in fact, the other way around. I came to scoff and stayed to smile. I must say, the theme of the film did not inspire me. ‘A wooly mammoth, a saber-tooth tiger and a sloth try to save a human baby and return it to its parents.’ Uh, huh. But there is a beauty in the fact that Peter Ackerman’s screenplay is so sly and literate and even more, the stunning special images and avataric style of director Chris Wedge had me spellbound. The movie charmed me.

The movie is set somewhere in the course of a species’ southward migration during a particular sequence of a great ice age. These sorts of migrations have taken place over centuries and were certainly not the pre-Cambrian equivalent of going to Florida during the winters, but no matter as the packs of ice advance, the animals retreat. Mankind has indeed placed an iceberg of a schedule over them that sets priorities in things they must do and that carve out ample time to go overboard on things meant as ‘fun’. Baby mammoths playing in a tar pit were hurried by their parents to step away into You can play Extinction later. We are first acquainted with Sid the sloth (voiced by John Leguizamo) and Manfred the Mammoth (voiced by Ray Romano). Naturally, they can talk. It is humans, they believe, who have not yet mastered language.) Sid and Manny discover a small child, defenseless and human, and, against their better judgment, decide to return the child to its parents. This is despite the knowledge of having set weapons to hunt and kill them. Along the way, they are joined by Diego the Sabretooth (voiced by Denis Leary), who harbors less than noble intentions. The bonds formed are rather unlikely, for while Diego is certainly capable of devouring Manny, Sid despairingly attempts to save the ‘brave’ mammoth from near-certain death while they are all in danger of becoming each other’s late-night meal.

Absolutely, altruism is a favorable trait from evolution’s perspective. A species with members who can subjugate themselves for the continuation of the race is a species that will somehow make it in the Darwinian lottery. BUT, pay attention. When Diego the Sabertooth asks Manfred the Mammoth why he saved him, Manny replies, “You do that as a herd.” Yes, indeed. However, herds are literally defined as conspecifics of the same species (and tigers are not herd animals, anyway). If Manny’s philosophy somehow makes it around the animal kingdom, evolution will come to a halt, overpopulation will take hold, non-vegetarians will starve, and the picture will be most unappealing. Much of the calmness and chore of nature relies on the consumption of the neighboring.

Yet, “Ice Age” does not have at its center a Darwinian ideology. Instead, it preaches about a kinder and softer world, the Ice Age meets the New Age. Zoology does not really matter anyway in a movie of this type, which is a comedy cartoon. Enormous advances have been made in animation technology recently, as computers took over underlying work. But few movies have been as painterly as “Ice Age,” whose first admirable features are the faces of the characters (the underslung jaw of the sabertooth and the out-rigger eyes of the sloth.)
The region is much more than a cartoon world, the colors are pleasant, and the character motions have glitches, gentle wobbles, changes of pace, and skips that give them charm. And the animals blossom as personalities.

Everything about this is amusing. I would argue that it tricks the audience and, in the end, charms them, but it begins its charming efforts with the very first shots of the twitching squirrel that is trying to bury an acorn in an icy wilderness. This squirrel follows the main action and serves as a contrast to it, which he does excellently given his distinct and hilarious character. I think that he will be the main character in one of his own films.

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