Ice Age, Dawn of the Dinosaurs is the third installment of the Ice Age franchise, and comes to Blu-ray (with DVD included) via directors Carlos Saldanda (director of the other Ice Ages and Robots) and Mike Thurmeier (also director of the other Ice Age movies and Robots) and writers Peter Ackerman and Michael Berg (writers of 2002’s Ice Age).
A lot of fun for the kiddies, Ice Age 3 is voiced by return star talents to the franchise John Leguizamo (Sid), Queen Latifah (Ellie), and Dennis Leary (Diego).
There are actually two stories going on: Scrat chasing the acorn and finding love and competition for his precious acorn along the way, and the mammoths Ellie (Latifah) and Manny’s (Ray Romano) parent story combined with the slough Sid’s need to be a parent.
Some of the funniest moments come when Sid tries to be a parent. He adopts three eggs, which hatch and we find out he has adopted three baby T-Rexes. Manny and Ellie, who are to-be parents themselves, try to talk him out of keeping the eggs, and later, when they hatch, they try to talk him into taking them back where he found them.
One of the funniest scenes is when Sid tries to take the T-Rexes to a play date at the local prehistoric park and cute as they are, they are hungry, because, well, they are T-Rexes! The formula results in hilarious gags as they try to eat their friends. Parents will appreciate the prehistoric take on the modern play date at the park! Sid, not winning any parent-of-the-year awards, chases them continually in an effort to save the other kid dinos and demands they spit out the other dinosaurs they have eaten.
Manny and Ellie give good advice well spent, because guess who shows up? Momma T-Rex, of course, and she wants her babies back. Not only does she take her babies, but Sid gets lost in the shuffle and goes along for the ride.
The other character that makes this film very enjoyable is Buck (Simon Pegg), who is a one-eyed weasel that the group stubbles upon in the underworld that the dinosaurs have disappeared into. Buck is just a fun, scurvy pirate sort with a lot of attitude and a passion for revenge against the dinosaur who took his eye.
Disc Two includes the DVD special features: the film in standard definition and a filmmaker’s commentary. A digital copy is also available.
This third Ice Age film is good, clean family fun. Kiddies will like the characters; adults will find humor in the prehistoric vs. modern dilemmas (i.e. playdates, the tongue and cheek relationship between Scrat and Scratte, the parenting issues of Manny and Ellie and the wanna-be parent Sid). The numerous special features make the Blu-ray + DVD well worth the money.
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs [Blu-ray] is now available at Amazon . Visit the DVD database for more information.
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