Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is the third installment in the Ice Age series of animated films. Usually, by the third film most series tend to run out of steam, but how does Ice Age’s third outing fair?

Well I’ll just get this out of the way… Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is a very entertaining film, and is probably the best of the Ice Age films.

The film begins with the “misfit herd” from the previous films embarking on new adventures: Manny and Ellie (the mammoths) are expecting parents (why does that seem to be a theme of threequels to family films?), the saber-toothed tiger, Diego, contemplates leaving the herd, believing he has lost his predatory edge as a tiger. The opossums, Crash and Eddie, just seem to go with the flow, and Sid the sloth is more or less trying to figure out what to do with himself. That is until he falls into a dark chasm and discovers three seemingly abandoned eggs, which he then decides to “adopt” as his own. Of course eggs don’t stay eggs forever, and they soon hatch into baby tyrannosauruses, who’s mother soon arrives to “rescue” them, kidnapping Sid along the way.

As it turns out, there is an underground realm where the dinosaurs never went extinct (a la Skull Island from King Kong). The dinosaurs roam freely in this underground lost world, and are less human like in personality then the creatures of the surface world.

So Manny, Diego and the rest of the herd set out to the dinosaur world on a sloth-based rescue mission. Along the way they are joined by an eccentric, dinosaur-hunting weasel named Buck, who spends his time on a never ending hunt for a legendary white dinosaur that goes by the dreaded name of….Rudy! Buck himself is something of the show stealer of the film. It seems to be a format for each new sequel to an animated film franchise to get new characters, often at the expense of screen time for the  characters from previous films. In many ways this is also true of Buck, but I excuse him of this due to his presence in the film seeming a lot more necessary then most of these type of characters. The herd actually needed a guide to lead them through this unknown dinosaur world, did Shrek really need Puss in Boots when he already had Donkey? That and the fact that Buck is my new favorite character in the Ice Age franchise also helps. Yes, I like him even more then Scrat.

And speaking of Scrat, no Ice Age film would be complete without this saber-toothed squirrel and his constant hunt for that ever elusive acorn making up the side story of the movie. Scrats acorn hunt also leads him to the dinosaur world, this time accompanied by his female counterpart, Scratte, whom he competes with for the acorn.  Scrat’s antics are (as always) more cartoonish then those of the other primary characters, but they never fail to entertain.

Like the other Ice Age films, Dawn of the Dinosaurs is primarily a comedy, but unlike the other Ice Ages, it can equally be deemed an action film. Sure, the other Ice Ages had their action-packed moments, but Dawn of the Dinosaurs delivers an all out summer action movie just as much as it delivers an animated comedy. Of course, maybe calling it a “summer action movie” isn’t doing it justice, as that may imply the kind of movie with frantic, hard-to follow action and mindless explosions. I should correct myself and point out that the action in Dawn of the Dinosaurs is well thought out and brilliantly executed.

All in all, I think Dawn of the Dinosaurs is more then likely the best Ice Age film (though it’s been a while since I last saw the other two). It delivered on all the good points of the previous films in the series and added a great action film into the mix. It’s most prominent new character is actually a delight to have in the film instead of an unneeded attention stealer seen in most animated sequels, and it has dinosaurs! Who doesn’t like dinosaurs?!

It seems like the average film franchise ends with the third film, but quite honestly, after Dawn of the Dinosaurs, I want to know what happens next to Manny, Sid, Diego and the rest of the clan. And should there be a sequel, I hope it ends up as good as this entry.

Always listen to Buck!

(1 votes, average: 7.00 out of 10, rated)

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