Review No.161: Ice Age - Continental Drift

More kiddy cartoon action now with the fourth instalment in the Ice Age franchise a series which I've caught smatterings of but never had been a huge fan. As you can imagine from the title the whole premise of these cartoons are that they focus around a group of prehistoric mammals who, though they are outcasts, have come together to form a mini family. In this fourth film the dynamic of the three is changing with Manny the Woolly Mammoth, voiced by Ray Romano, now having a teenager daughter of whom he is very protective while his wife Ellie tells him to lighten up. Sid the sloth also has family problems when his  whole brood descends only to lumber him with their wise-talking grandmother, voiced as Wanda Sykes playing the character she always plays in these kinds of films, before scarpering off once again. Finally there's Dennis Leary's sabre tooth tiger Diego the gruffest of the bunch who is feeling lonely so wouldn't you know it throughout the film he ends up finding love. As the subtitle atests to this sees our band of heroes drift off as the ice cap begins to melt and different parts of ice are splintered separating Manny from his family with the majority of the woolly mammoths having to find a new home while our central trio plus Sykes' character try to find home again. Continental Drift also parodies/rips off the pirate genre by having our heroes having to defend themselves from a gang of pirates led by Captain Gutt, voiced by Peter Dinklage in full Game of Thrones mode, which include a range of animals from Nick Frost's dumb elephant Flynn to Jennifer Lopez's sexy sabre tooth tiger Shira who as I alluded to earlier becomes Diego's love interest. Along the way there are life lessons learnt as Shira learns it's better to part of a family, Manny's daughter learns that she'd been better sticking with her friend than going after the bad boy and Sid learns that he isn't as much of a screw up as his family think he is. As well as all this there's the usual malarkey with Scat the squirrel desperately trying to bury his acorn.

As you can imagine this is a lot to cover in under 90 minutes and to me Continental Drift reeks of the flogging of a dead horse despite some clever touches. I don't think anyone, who is at least under eight, really needed yet another Ice Age film and Continental Drift seems to be drinking the well dry with plenty of pointless subplots and stunt casting. Said stunt casting includes R&B stars Nicki Minaj and Drake popping up as two of Manny's daughters friends I'm not sure if these names bought any customers to see the film especially for them however I'm wondering the point of paying two such high profile stars for voicing very minor characters. Thankfully the main voice cast are still good at their jobs while Dinklage adds that little bit of eccentricity and Nick Frost is also good in his minor role as Captain Gutt's comic side kick however as much as I love Wanda Sykes her wise-cracking nature doesn't fit with the character she has been asked to play. As far as the plot goes there's far too much of it and I feel the pirate stuff was also a little bit rushed as were the stories involving the other mammoths which I feel that I didn't really need. I'm also sure I've heard and seen all these messages in previous animated films where they were said and done better plus probably spending a lot less money than the team behind Continental Drift did. I do appreciate that I'm not the target market here and I do think there's a lot more enjoyment to be have if you're under eight but I've still seen smarter films for that age group that I enjoyed just as much as they would've done. Ultimately I can't help but see this as a pure money making venture, rather like the fourth Shrek film, as this is a franchise that long outstayed its welcome but one that it seems looks set to continue as this film as already made a shed load of cash.

Verdict: Some nice comic touches plus a reliable voice cast mean that Continental Drift is passable plus it will appeal to its target market but I feel that it exists purely to make money rather than to bring any particular kind of entertainment so for that reason it gets 5.5/10