Michael Berg (5)

Despite a wonderful new character with the voice of Simon Pegg and one of the better Scrat-subplots of the entire series, this is a middling film with a weak, nearly non-existent plot and very heavy-handed character arcs (which are, of course, still better than no arcs at all). But it has some fun moments, and I have a soft spot for Hollow Earth theory nonsense.

A solid step up from the rather aimless third film, with a great villain from Peter Dinklage, some genuinely creepy (yet funny) sirens, and some mildly amusing eccentric old person hijinks from Wanda Sykes. Otherwise yet another somewhat bland and overwrought sequel when compared to the grounded and genuine original.

Really like this one, the story, the voices, the beautiful animation, and especially the way Matty changes through the picture. The side story with the squirrel is a great gift, like the old time cartoons they used to show before the feature. You can keep the sequels.

I think that this was the first of the Ice Age series that I sat down with the kids and watched all the way through, so I might not be as tired by the repeated tropes as I might if I had seen the other movies. It was okay. I mean, it's a kids movie in a series to sell movies and keep children entertained. And my children were entertained. There was almost some internal conflict and character development with the sabre-toothed tiger, but I think that was lost by the end.