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

Review No.105: Snow White and The Huntsman

So now onto the second of the Snow White films and the one that has possibly been a little more anticipated as it stars Twilight's Kristen Stewart as the eponymous heroine in Snow White and The Huntsman. The tone of this one is a lot darker as in the first ten minutes there is a full on battle scene as well as Charlize Theron's Queen Ravena killing off her King on her wedding night, how's that for foreplay. From there it goes a bit more traditional with Snow White being locked in the tower however this time Eric the huntsman is sent by The Queen to return her stepdaughter to her as she needs to rip out her heart in order to live forever. The brutish Eric, played by Thor's Chris Hemsworth complete with odd Celtic accent, agrees to do this in exchange for the return of his wife who has in actuality already been slaughtered by The Queen. When he discovers this he decides to team up with Snow White and together they negotiate the pitfalls of The Dark Forest before being captured by the dwarfs who have a vendetta with Eric. Soon learning Snow White's identity they discover that she is the only one who can lift the curse so banding together with her childhood sweetheart William they decide to battle only for her to fall foul of that old poisoned apple routine and has to be kissed by her true love but it doesn't take an idiot to find out who that is. Snow White then goes all Joan of Arc rallying her troops and her father's former subjects to take down The Queen once and for all in order to release her strangle hold on the people.

For the first half hour or so of Snow White and The Huntsman I found a lot to like mainly because Charlize Theron took the lead as the brilliant immortal Ravena. With all the bloodshed, seduction and magic it did feel like a PG-rated episode of Game of Thrones especially given the closeness in the relationship between The Queen and her brother Finn. Once Snow White escaped however things got a bit dull with both Stewart and Hemsworth not really connecting with me in the way that the two title characters should. Stewart's Snow White was to an extent a strong female character and her battle cries were convincing however she still seemed to quiver  like a schoolgirl whenever the man she loved looked straight in her eyes. Personally though I had no emotional involvement in either Eric or Snow so I was glad when the dwarfs came along to lighten the mood with Nick Frost and Ian McShane in particular impressing in a gang that also included Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone and Eddie Marsan. In fact I felt the dwarfs were used far too sparingly and I could've done with a few more scenes featuring them before the final battle. I did quite enjoy the battles with cinematographer Greig Fraser really focusing in on the action in the final conflict which made me care more than I would normally about a medieval skirmish. The Pembrokeshire scenery added itself well to the bleak story with its old-fashioned landscape lending the right tone to the film. This is Theron's show though and whenever Ravena is onscreen I was completely captivated and when she wasn't I wondered when she would be on next. This then is a bit of a problem when your lead actress doesn't make as much of an impact as your villain but that's what happens when you make you heroine an emotionally-detached Emo Joan of Arc rather than someone who the audience can actually connect with.

In terms of the battle of the Snow White films I feel this wins due to the darker subject matter and the fact that Charlize Theron could kick Julia Roberts' ass. Much has been made of the use of normal-sized actors to play the dwarfs however they added another element to the film that was missing with the diminutive sidekicks in Mirror Mirror. While not a great film more was made to make this a bit different with enough visual flair and great supporting performances to become more of a well-rounded movie.

Verdict: It's a shame this is called Snow White and The Huntsman as The Queen and The Dwarfs are what this film is all about so because of that I'll award this film a 6/10