Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

Release Date (UK) - 1 July 2009

Certificate (UK) - U

Country - USA

Directors - Carlos Saldanha, Mike Thurmeier

Runtime - 94 mins

Voices - Denis Leary, John Leguizamo, Queen Latifah, Ray Romano, Seann William Scott, Simon Pegg

The friendly family saga of the Ice Age herd continues in a thoroughly enjoyable sequel. When the unsettled Diego leaves the pack a lonely Sid adopts some eggs he finds to start his own family and the eggs then hatch into havoc creating dinosaurs. The dinosaur's mother searches for her eggs and finds Sid, taking him and her babies back to the dinosaur valley under the ice and the film follows the rest of the herds journey to rescue Sid.

There are plenty of jokes for the adults to enjoy and children will easily understand the family themes and messages - Diego leaves and Sid want his own family as they feel slightly outcast as Mammoth Ellie is pregnant and these feeling will generate resonance with many young viewers. There is a lack of interaction with history as the previous melting of the ice in Ice Age 2: Meltdown has mysteriously stopped and I'm not to sure whether dinosaurs would have been around during the ice age! However this aside this is a very enjoyable sequel and I'm sure it will do very well over the summer even if it does have to compete with Harry Potter.

Simon Pegg's character is one of the funniest new additions to the Ice age cast as Buck who guides the herd through the dinosaurs land as they search for Sid. The visual gags from the side plot of the acorn hunting Scrat is developed more as the female Scratte appears and they fight over the acorn but I still always cant help feeling that this side plot would work much better if there was interaction between their acorn fighting antics and the main plot following the rest of the herd.

The film was clearly not made as a 3D film just converted for some screenings so there is none of the over the top jumping out of things from the screen which all 3D made films seem to need to repeatedly fill their films with. In this way its just a nice addition to the film and draws the audience into the film experience and story more while is something extra for all to enjoy.