That's because of the artwork, the dialogue and the voice-over work by the actors the filmmakers have all worked together to really see and love these characters, who are not "cartoon animals" but as quirky and individual as human actors, and more engaging than most. And the animals blossom as personalities. The landscape is convincing without being realistic, the color palette is harmonious, the character movements include little twists, jiggles, hesitations and hops that create personality. But few movies have been as painterly as "Ice Age," which begins with good choices of faces for the characters (note the sabertooth's underslung jaw and the sloth's outrigger eyes). Enormous advances have been made in animation technology in recent years, as computers have taken over the detail work and freed artists to realize their visions. And the philosophy scarcely matters, anyway, since this is an animated comedy. "Ice Age" does not preach Darwinian orthodoxy, however, but a kinder, gentler world view: Ice Age meets New Age. Much of the serenity and order of nature depends on eating the neighbors. If Manny's philosophy were to get around in the animal kingdom, evolution would break down, overpopulation would result, there would be starvation among the non-vegetarians, and it would be an ugly picture.
But herds are by definition made up of members of the same species (and tigers are not herd animals, anyway). When Diego the Sabertooth asks Manfred the Mammoth why he saved him, Manny replies, "That's what you do as a herd." Yes, absolutely. It is true that altruism is a positive evolutionary trait a species with individuals willing to die for the survival of the race is a species that will get somewhere in the Darwinian sweepstakes. They are potentially one another's dinners, and yet through Sid's insouciance and Manny's bravery in saving Diego from certain death, they bond and become friends. Along the trail they are joined by Diego the Sabertooth (voiced by Denis Leary), who has a hidden agenda. (It is the humans, they believe, who have not yet mastered language.) When Sid and Manny come upon a small, helpless human child, they decide to protect it and return it to its parents-even though those same parents, they know, have developed weapons for killing them. Baby mammoths, playing in a tar pit, are told by their parents to hurry up: "You can play Extinction later." We meet Manfred the Mammoth (voiced by Ray Romano) and Sid the Sloth (voiced by John Leguizamo). Such migrations took place over millennia and were not the pre-Cambrian equivalent of going to Florida for the winter months, but no matter: As the ice packs advance, the animals retreat. The film takes place during a southward migration of species during a great ice age.
But Peter Ackerman's screenplay is sly and literate, and director Chris Wedge's visual style so distinctive and appealing that the movie seduced me. I confess the premise did not inspire me: A woolly mammoth, a sabertooth tiger and a sloth team up to rescue a human baby and return it to its parents. "Ice Age" is a pleasure to look at and scarcely less fun as a story.
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