Ice Age

Post by **Meg** » April 3rd, 2006, 2:57 pm

Is that when Harry Potter is opening? Hoo boy, number five already. I'm getting old.

But I'm stiiiiil young! *boogies*

Post by **Christian** » April 3rd, 2006, 4:00 pm

The "Trailer" is a freaking 20 seconds long!!!

That's why it's called a teaser trailer. Teaser trailers are generally not much more than an announcement that a movie is coming out.

Post by **Ben** » April 3rd, 2006, 4:16 pm

Hmmm, it it weren't for the fact that SUPERMAN opens in 2006 (!!) then this fake start could have actually worked!

Doesn't look much different from the show's animation though. It'll be a big hit whatever.

Post by **Kaszubas** » April 3rd, 2006, 7:27 pm

hey

I've just seen The Meltdown and I have to say that I have mixed fillings. This is visually very very well executed movie. Exceptional animation (the best of squash & stretch) of main characters, nice design, beautiful stylized environments, gorgeous rendering & lighting, much improved fur, fantastic, very realistic water (in second half of the movie - in the first half water's splashes were simulated much weaker - water had consistency somewere between cold vodka and quicksilver), nice characters, very funny physical jokes (Scrat and Sid rule with the possum brothers just behind). But the story is quite flat, narration unconsistant, lack of character development (they're all the same as developed in the first movie). Last but obviously not least: polish dubbing was weak this time (in the first one it was one of the biggest advantages). Voice casting was all right (trio preserved its voices) but the translation was bad (new translator lost its pedecessor's gleam and humour) and there was no subtitled option with original english audio... So... It was quite good time in the cinema, real visual feast for my eyes and quite good entertainment so it was worth the money spent for tickets

Congrats to all people who worked hard on this flick and achieved such beautiful pictures and great animation

Post by **Ben** » April 4th, 2006, 8:26 am

Kaszubas wrote:cold vodka

Is there any other kind?

Post by **Kaszubas** » April 4th, 2006, 9:49 am

Ben wrote:
Kaszubas wrote:cold vodka
Is there any other kind?

hehe

I know it's funny and hard to belive but in the times when I was studying fine arts fridge was one of those quite rare goods in polish student dorms so "not so cold" kind of vodka appeared sometimes (or a little more often) on the horizon

And it was late 90s of XX century, not some ancient ages

Post by **ShyViolet** » April 4th, 2006, 10:05 pm

I almost saw this last night with my Girl Scout troop...Everyone wanted to see it except my troop leader, who thought it would be a better idea to see "Failure to Launch".

You're a Girl Scout? Aww that's sweet.

I was a Brownie when I was little, but just for one year.

Post by **Meg** » April 5th, 2006, 7:49 am

*mumbles*

Well it's more like a youth group anyway, and, er, I'm just in it for the college brownie points, and....uh...Yeah, I'm a Girl Scout. But our troop is shrinking faster than an ice cube in coffee, so I think this year's my last.

Post by **Lindsay** » April 7th, 2006, 8:06 pm

I'm with James' brief thoughts on the film, too. I had seen it opening night, and it just didn't do much for me. The voice acting felt hollow and stilted in a way - a step back even from the not-exactly-excellent voicework of the original. Even Queen Latifah's performance felt reined-in and kind of "meh" - I had hopes that she'd jazz up the film a little, but she was just too tame, I guess. Maybe having such a large voiceover role just didn't suit her, either. Some actors just can't "emote" the way they do with a live person. *shrug*

It really did have that feeling to it that the filmmakers just threw in some scrapped ideas from the first film into this one, because a lot of the subplots and tertiary characters really fell flat for me. Scrat's little vignettes were more of the same, yet some of them had a distinct Chuck Jones flavor to them, which I really appreciated.

Overall, though - I wouldn't really recommend it. Maybe for a matinee or a rental, but it just didn't do much for me. And I liked the original film a lot, too. I also found Robots to be very charming and entertaining in its own right.

Post by **Ben** » April 9th, 2006, 12:16 pm

I felt the first Ice Age, as I said at the time, was just a bunch of lines being read back to each other...there weren't really any personalities coming through. The "comedy" wasn't in the lines, but merely the performance (I still hate "How do we know it's an ice age?" - "Because...of...all the ICE!!" That's not funny at all, but when it's shouted back, people laughed...go figure).

But then Ice Age turned out to be this big hit and a LOT of people loved it!!??

I liked the portrayal of the humans, and as Chris Wedge showed with both Bunny and the simple perfect, brilliant invention of Scrat, he works best in producing animation without dialogue - Ice Age's script wasn't really too hot, and don't get me started on the brain overload that was Robots...

So I'm looking forward, but more out of interest, to seeing what they've done here, but it does sound like "more of the same"...

Post by **Meg** » April 9th, 2006, 5:38 pm

"How do we know it's an ice age?" - "Because...of...all the ICE!!"

That line makes me wince.

Post by **macontosh2000** » April 10th, 2006, 9:16 am

I saw it yesterday and i thought it was just okay.

Its biggest problem was its story (as many of you mentioned) there just wasnt one, it felt like it was just a few ideas that were thrown together. And there were too many pointless scenes (like the vulture song, and the sloth/god of fire scene). Another big problem for me was i dont think they should have cast Queen Latifah (who i usually like) as Ellie, i just dont think that her voice fit with the look of the character. I also thought that the shot of the water breaking through the ice at the end looked odd.

Now for the positive. Other than the one shot i mentioned above i thought the animation was supurb, i found myself staring at the fur on the characters instead of watching the movie. Another thing i liked was that they actually gave Scrat a point, in the first one he would just appear at anytime and not advance the story at all. But in this one he was actually used to advance the plot at the end.

7/10

On a side note I am suprised that they decided to melt the ice in the second film, because now if they wanted to do a third film the only option that i can think of is Ice Age 3 : The Extinction which i dont think would go over very well with kids.

Post by **Meg** » April 10th, 2006, 12:13 pm

On a side note I am suprised that they decided to melt the ice in the second film, because now if they wanted to do a third film the only option that i can think of is Ice Age 3 : The Extinction which i dont think would go over very well with kids.

Now THAT I would see!

Post by **Ben** » April 12th, 2006, 9:15 am

Saw it last night also.

Agree for the most part, but though it didn't have the "heart" of the first one, I actually ended up enjoying it more.

Thought the story got caught up in itself by the time Latifah's mammoth came in, and it started to really lose its way and resort to throwing in some random ideas (the fire king and bird song, as mentioned above) and messing with nature (I found it funny how the ice took years to melt and suddenly we have a flashflood...yeah, I know about the dam thing...)...

Also, why didn't the ice that Scrat raced through at the end start to melt? I thibk they would have been pretty stuck then! The mammoths at the end seemed like an afterthought and then never did anything!

THEN AGAIN...how refreshing it was to see a movie that was simple, and simply "fun". The animation was leaps up from the first, but not in your face, with some plain old jokes and a better script from before. It did not resort to over the top references, hyperkinetic "help I wanna get off the ride" scenes, and even had some good old fashioned danger thrown in.

From mid way to the end wasn't so hot, and with the ice melting I can't see how they're gonna do the inevitable part 3 unless there's a reason they have to travel to the last ice-infested part of the planet, but this was enjoyable enough.

The audience I was with were vastly entertained and I can see why it's doing so well...could bode well for The Wild if audiences want to see more of the same.

BTW, good news for UK types: we get The Wild in May, according to the trailer I caught last night.

Post by **Macaluso** » April 13th, 2006, 4:17 pm

Man I don't even care about the story in this. It wasn't great, but everything else made up for it. That movie was an absolute blast. My favorite part was the balancing rocks part. That whole scene was awesome.