Ice Age: The Meltdown

In Ice Age (2002) prehistoric animals—a saber-tooth tiger, mastodon, and several unidentifiable rodents—band together to protect a lost child and return it to its own kind. What poignancy there is in the film derives from the fact that all the animals—save the child—are headed for ultimate extinction as the ice age comes to an end and the human race takes hold. Ice Age is mainly a slapstick film, played for laughs and excitement, and there is not much of an underlying message.

In the sequel, Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006), any pretense of poignancy is abandoned. All the characters from the first film reappear (save the child), and they struggle to escape the floodwaters released from the melting of the ice caps. This film was louder and more active than the first one, more intensely full of slapstick and one-liners, right on the level of a lesser Three Stooges episode. Digital animation is amazing, but if it is to work it needs a story and imagination.