The love life of a woolly mammoth--handled with G-rated delicacy--drives this sequel to the first computer-animated romp in the age of prehistoric mammals. While the first Ice Age took a delightful premise and suffocated it with a formulaic plot--in which a mammoth named Manfred (voiced by Ray Romano, Everyone Loves Raymond), a sloth named Sid (John Leguizamo, Moulin Rouge!), and a sabre-tooth tiger named Diego (Denis Leary, Rescue Me) helped an abandoned human infant return to its tribe (basically, Three Mammals and a Baby)--the sequel takes the now-familiar setting, gives it a shapeless, episodic storyline, and yet somehow becomes pretty darn entertaining. Faced with the threat of a flood from melting ice, our heroic trio are on the run to escape from their blossoming valley. On the way, they meet a female mammoth (Queen Latifah, Bringing Down the House) who thinks she's an opossum and get menaced by some freshly defrosted carnivo! rous fish. Add into the mix a herd of lava-worshipping mini-sloths, some Busby Berkeley-style vultures, and more ingenious slapstick featuring the acorn-crazed Scrat, and Ice Age: The Meltdown will amuse even jaded adults. -- Bret Fetzer

Beyond Ice Age: The Meltdown

Ice Age - Super Cool Edition

Ice Age & Ice Age 2: The Meltdown - (DVD 2-Pack)

Funtastic Adventures Collection Box Set (Ice Age / Robots / Fern Gully / Once Upon a Rainforest)

Stills from Ice Age: The Meltdown (click for larger image)

Better than the first...but that's not saying much.

Ok, this movie wasn't AWFUL. But it wasn't good. At least it was better than the first one.

STORY & CHARACTERS. Ok, i liked the concept of this movie, with the meltdown and all. It had great visuals, and Scrat's little endeavor was enjoyable enough. But the plot meandered, the love story was dull and predictable, and i almost threw something at the screen about the 10th time Queen Latifah said she was a possum. What is she retarded, too? The characters were boring and uninteresting. They lacked anything of value to contribute to the movie, and did not make me sympathetic toward any of their plights.

HUMOR. Ok, this is where it gets REALLY bad. The humor was...TERRIBLE. Absolutely ATROCIOUS. With the exception of about 3 things (the dung beetles, the moles, and the vulture song), the humor was pretty bad. Jokes were stale, re-used, predictable, unimaginative, and lacked any kind of punch. At times, the attempt at humor was not only unfunny, but ANNOYING. This movie reminds me of that guy in your office who NO ONE thinks is funny, but he finds himself hysterical, and forces everyone to listen to his jokes all day. Take this movie...please. And before i get too many negative comments assuming that i wanted more "adult" humor, it's not because jokes were not "adult" enough. They just weren't funny. There are PLENTY of animated movies that use humor in a very clean way and are genuinely funny, and not dull. Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Robots, Chicken Little (sooooo underrated, by the way).

In conclusion, the movie was worth...well, very little. I guess it was only really worth it for the dung beetles ("Do we have to take this crap with us?"), the moles ("I was born in this hole, and i'm gonna die in this hole!") and the vulture song ("Food Glorious Food.") Those were all genuinely clever. I might be missing at most, one or two more lines i was amused by, but that's about it. Stick with all the Pixar movies for your kids, check out Chicken Little, and don't waste your money or time on this dung heap.

The #1 Movie of 2006

Ice Age:The Meltdown is by far the best movie of 2006.definatly.
At the start of the movie,it actully hardly looks like a shoe-in at all.
the movie is lathargic,uses over-used references,and dosent look like a contender.however,it wouldent be long before the movie would catch on.
starting about the 4th scene,the movie done what most movies need to do to get great(which sometimes works and sometimes dosent.),''take the shot down the field'',and it worked,and made the movie a contender.the movie then turns to its all star lineup of manny,sid,and diego(with,as always,sid being the funniest)and goes to the aproach that made it so great:physicial comedy.fart jokes,mammoths falling out of trees,possums banging into trees,bunches of it.
later on,the movie introduces 3 new characters,ellie(the female mammoth who has identity issues)and the 2 mischeavios possums,crash and eddie,while also shining on scrat(will he ever get his nut?).
to end it,the dvd is also great.featurettes,''vintage''films,and bunches more.the movie is so beutifully directed out by Carlos Saldanha(who deserves a emmy award for this movie)
in my opinoin,Ice Age:The Meltdown is very truly the number one movie of 2006.it definatly deserves a shot from anybody who likes comedy.oh,and for those that have been wondering,a 3rd ice age movie is in production,and is expected for release in 2008.

Average storyline

Specific situations (Sid worshippers) and characters (the possum-mammoth) are not someting I'd personally dream up, but the general storyline and execution were fairly predictable. Scrat on the other hand, he's hilarious. Poor little rat has no luck at all, but his antics are great.