Think of “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” as your dad’s old Ford Country Squire station wagon: It epitomized a breed, it was reliable and kids liked it.
But as you grew up, you realized it wasn’t as fun as you remembered, wasn’t quite so reliable as you thought and hoo-boy, a road trip was agony itself.
In a nutshell, that’s the third film in the successful “Ice Age” series: a mediocre standard bearer for a genre that kids love and adults tolerate. Doubtless it will make piles of money, but the Law of Diminishing Comedic Returns looms large, and the gags seem increasingly hollow in a basically weak product.
The film reunites stalwart, sensible woolly mammoth Manny (voiced by Ray Romano), impulsive and dumb sloth Sid (John Leguizamo) and sulky, broody saber-toothed cat Diego (Denis Leary). Along for the ride is Manny’s spouse, Ellie (Queen Latifah), who has a mammoth bun in the oven.
“But wait a minute,” you’re thinking. “Those are all mammals. And dinosaurs went extinct before all these mammals were around!” Exactly! So how can there be a dawn of dinosaurs? Well, blame old Sid, whose shenanigans result in a plunge into an underground world, a land of the lost if you will, where dinosaurs not only exist, but thrive.
Sid has taken to mothering three eggs he found in an ice cave, which hatch into three adorable tyrannosaurs. Unfortunately they try to devour mammalian young at a playground that Manny made for his upcoming little miracle. The tyrannosaurs’ massive mama shows up, and soon a courageous group of mammals is venturing into the underground world in search of Sid.
It’s a struggle for survival aided immeasurably by a rakish, Errol Flynn-ish weasel named Buck (voiced by the terrific Simon Pegg). He proves adept at surviving amid the dangerous dinosaurs, including the gigantic Rudy, a fearsome carnivore so prodigious that he devours woolly mammoths like hairy hors d’oeuvres.
The movie doesn’t strike out, but it doesn’t hit any home runs, either. The animation is crisp and fluid but not particularly exciting. The characters look wonderful, but backgrounds are dull. And while it’s 3-D, it’s not gripping, in-your-face 3-D. It just sort of adds a bit of dimension between foregrounds and backgrounds.
The famous voice actors have fun, but their dialogue isn’t as snappy-clever as it was in the two prior films. The movie’s strength is visual humor, with the saber-toothed squirrel-thing Scrat once again ardently pursuing an acorn but being diverted from his goal by a minxy flying squirrel. These sequences are among the movie’s best, relying on Wile E. Coyote gags executed in fun 3-D.
Kids will go crazy, as most of the humor is pitched at their level. Mom and Dad might wish they’d gone to the pool instead.