I was only slightly interested in seeing "Ice Age." Based on the trailers, it looked like a decent movie, but that's about it. In fact, my main motivation for seeing it was because I heard that before the movie, it was gonna have the trailer for "Star Wars: Episode Two - Attack of the Clones." Sure, I saw it on TV already (it premiered during the commercial break between "Malcolm in the Middle" and "The X Files" on Sunday, March 10 on FOX), and I even recorded it. But I wanted to see it on the big screen (the trailer is pretty good, but it's messy, telling very little of the story... but maybe that's a good thing considering that nowadays, movie trailers seem to give away TOO much). When "Ice Age" started, I watched it not thinking I'd like it very much. As it turns out, I liked the movie a lot.
"Ice Age" has a great beginning. Within the first five minutes, it hooks you in. Unfortunately, if you've seen the trailer, you've already seen the beginning. It still works, though. As the story continues, it doesn't take much to figure out how the movie will end, it's very predictable. I think most people will figure out how it will end within the first twenty minutes, but the ride there is fun. Oh, and don't look for lotsa historical accuracy. It's an animated film, so most people will be very leniant with things like that, but there are always those few who will nitpick and bitch about how the real ice age wasn't really like that. Whatever!
The animation is very good, though not as good as what you'd find in movies from Disney/Pixar or PDI/Dreamworks. "Ice Age" was made by 20th Century Fox, whose last animated film was the disasterous "Titan A.E.," but before that was the surprisingly good "Anastasia," though that was cel animation, not computer animation.
The casting of the characters is excellent, all of them did a fantastic job. Ray Romano (star of the TV show "Everybody Loves Raymond") is perfectly cast as "Manfred," the woolly mammoth. John Leguizamo (an actor who usually annoys me, though he was very good in "Moulin Rouge") does the voice for "Sid," the sloth. He does something to his voice, so it doesn't sound like him, but it's exactly right for the character. I think John Leguizamo can make a fortune doing voice acting alone. Finally, there's Denis Leary (hilarious comedian... starred in "The Ref" and stars in the TV show, "The Job") as "Diego," the sabertooth. His raspy, antagonistic voice totally suits that character.
The people who made this people are mostly newcomers to feature films, and they should all be very proud of themselves. The director was Chris Wedge, and this is his feature film debut, though he wrote and directed a popular animated short film called "Bunny," which won an Oscar for Best Animated Short Film. Chris Wedge gets "Directed by" credit, but then there's also a "Co-Director" credit. I don't know what a co-director does. Why can't they just list both of them under "Directed by"? Anyway, the co-director is Carlos Saldanha. He helped out Chris Wedge in making "Bunny" as he did some modeling and animation for it. He was also the Animation Supervisor for Blue Sky Studios during the making of "Fight Club." As for the writers, the story was by Michael J. Wilson (his feature film debut), and the screenplay was by Michael Berg (only other film is "New Jersey Turnpikes," which I never heard of) and Michael J. Wilson and Peter Ackerman (his debut). All of these guys did great work here.
By the way, there are a lotta similarities between "Ice Age" and "Monsters, Inc." (in my review, I gave "Monsters Inc." an 8, but I probably shoulda given it a 9), but I assure you, that's purely coincidental.
"Ice Age" is a great movie, and I'm glad I saw it. It's fast-paced, funny, and enjoyable. There are sentimental moments that are very sad, and they're effective. There's one scene where "Manfred" looks at writings on cave walls and thinks back to something that happened in his past. It's very similar to a scene in "The Prince of Egypt" (some may say it's TOO similar), but it's works perfectly in this movie. It's a very moving scene.
"Ice Age" really worked for me, and everyone involved should be very proud of it.
Scale of 1-10: 9