Ice Age: The Meltdown

The storyline wanes towards the end and, from the kids' point of view, the whole package lacks momentum.

Carlos Saldanha's mix of race-against-time action and eco-friendly propaganda is actually an improvement on the original, not least for giving its funniest character -- acorn-hunting rodent Scrat -- a lot more to do.

In its untouched-by-human-hand way, it's not bad and, as in the first film, the funniest moments involve the half-rat, half-squirrel Scrat.

A watered-down likeness that curiously turns disaster flick in its too-scary third act.

Watching this zoo of long-vanished quadrupeds, you're left with an eerie message for our own warming times: They fought the thaw, and the thaw won.

It isn't always out of whack, and I liked the way the writers tried to make Diego's fear of water into a universal metaphor relating to life in general, but the picture overall just doesn't work.

Suffering from the same troubles as Dreamworks’ Madagascar series, the Ice Age movies over-modernize their productions with hip lingo, base humor, nonsensical references, and structures them around thin storytelling.

I never bought in to this film and found myself regularly distracted by animation that seemed bland and boring.

Vaguely entertaining sequel to the big animated hit of 2002, but a bit flat...