Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (DVD)

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I was sitting in the historic Elks Theatre in Middletown, Pennsylvania when I first watched "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs." The local establishment is one of the oldest continually run theatres in the country and has been in use since it´s opening in 1911. My young neighbor Jon had turned seven and we were taking him to see a movie for his birthday celebration after having some cake and ice cream. I had not seen the second film, but thought the first movie was decent enough. In recent years, the Borough of Middletown purchased this landmark to allow the theater to remain open and has somehow managed to get first run movies on opening night. It´s always fun to go to the theatre where I saw "Star Wars" and aside from Three Mile Island, it´s the only interesting location in my hometown.

The poor Elks is in need of repair and the town is not stepping up to keep the theatre in decent shape. While watching "Ice Age 3," the skies opened up and poured and large buckets on the stage in front of the Elks large screen were quickly filling with water as the roof of the grand old theatre with a balcony has a porous roof. Little Jon loved the film and I found it entertaining, but it was distracting as the thunder storms outside caused a deluge that was causing the screen a little moisture inside. Regardless of the entertainment value of "Ice Age 3: Dawn of Dinosaurs," I will always remember watching that film at the Elks and the unusual situation sitting in the theater where I had seen so many classic films over the years. The theater was an important part of my childhood and now it is a leaky, but important part of others´ childhoods.

The film itself is a continuation of the successful "Ice Age" series that is one of the few non-Pixar franchises to become commercially successful in the age of computer generated animation. The first two films pulled in more than one billion dollars in combined revenue and this was nearly matched by the monstrously successful $90 million dollar third film in the franchise. Stars Ray Romano, John Leguizamo and Denis Leary return voice the characters Manny, Sid and Diego from the first two films. Chris Wedge and Alan Tudyk are other actors returning for a third "Ice Age" film. Queen Latifah, Seann William Scott and Josh Peck joined the series during the first sequel "Ice Age: Meltdown" and are joined by risings star Simon Pegg and Bill Hader for "Dawn of the Dinosaurs."

The story behind "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" has the woolly mammoth couple of Manny (Romano) and Ellie (Latifah) preparing to start a family with a baby. Manny is overly concerned and obsessive with being as safe as possible with his new family after past history and has went as far as creating a beautiful ice playground where the new child will be safe and his obsessive behavior is wearing thin on others. Sid (Leguizamo) wants to be an important part of Manny´s new family and when he is scorned by Manny, he becomes jealous. Diego (Leary) is starting to slow down and lose his edge as he grows complacent as part of Manny´s herd. Twin opossums Crash (Scott) and Eddie (Peck) continue to be part of the extended family and poor Scrat (Wedge) continues to be a subplot involving the ever lasting hunt for an acorn.

Wanting to show he can be a good father, Sid comes across three large eggs which turn out to be dinosaur eggs for a Tyrannosaurus Rex. He is ordered by Manny to return them to where he found them, but as usual, Sid screws everything up and the baby carnosaurs are hatched. Mayhem quickly follows their birth as the ice playground is destroyed and the young Rex hatchlings begin to eat the other animals. Matters grow even worse when their angry mother comes looking to collect her babies. When she gathers her young, she takes Sid along and keeps him captive as Sid tries to become a family with the humongous meat eater. The Tyrannosaurus takes the young and Sid to a lost world where the extinct dinosaurs are far from extinct.

Manny, Diego, Ellie and the opossum twins chase after their troublesome friend and come into danger when they are attacked by a smaller armored dinosaur. The sabertoothed Diego isn´t predator enough to save the heard, but an eye-patch wearing weasel named Buck (Pegg) quickly comes to their rescue with an adventurous accent and a blade fashioned from a large carnosaur named Rudy by Buck. Buck promises to be their guide through Lava Falls and he is quickly idolized by Crash and Eddie. The story progresses with the three smaller mammals saving Sid and Manny and Ellie welcoming Peaches to the family. Diego, who had felt helpless and lesser of a predator regains his mojo fending off smaller dinosaurs from attacking Ellie and Peaches and Buck finally gets his chance to fight Rudy.

As the main story continues, the well-loved star of the series theatrical trailers, Scrat, finds love. The sabertoothed squirrel finds an acorn and becomes torn for the love of a female sabertoothed squirrel named Scratette (Karen Disher). In the early goings, Scrat makes his decision, but finds himself fooled when it is revealed that Scratette is actually a flying sabertoothed squirrel and she can glide to capture the acorn and reach safety while allowing poor Scrat to fall to his demise. He is reunited with both the acorn and Scratette in Lava Falls and decides to give love for the female a chance. Everything goes well for a while as a familiar love song plays for the two, but after time Scrat´s stronger love for the acorn brings problems between he and Scratette and they are eventually separated and Scrat still has no acorn.

I´ve never been a big fan of Ray Romano and place "Everybody Loves Raymond" among my list of overrated television shows that I never enjoyed. Of course, that list includes "Seinfeld," so Romano is among good company. However, Romano has become Manny and after watching two of three films featuring the actor, he seems absolutely perfect as a large and slow woolly mammoth. I can´t imagine anybody else in the title role. The supporting cast of original members is extremely good as well as character actor John Leguizamo is incredible as Sid and Denis Leary makes for a pretty good sabertoothed tiger. As long as the threesome remains together, "Ice Age" is going to be a very good franchise and this grouping rivals the Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy and Cameron Diaz trio of the "Shrek" films.

While I don´t necessarily enjoy the very talented Queen Latifah as Ellie, I absolutely love Seann William Scott as Crash and think that Josh Peck and he do a great job as Crash and Eddie. While Chris Wedge isn´t given a lot of lines, he voices the show´s most beloved character, Scrat. Bill Hader appears for only a brief few moments during the films beginning, but he is funny in his outing as a gazelle who taunts Leary´s Diego. What I did truly enjoy in this third film was the work done by the amazingly funny Simon Pegg. Pegg is quickly becoming one of my generation´s great comedy character actors and his performance as Buck is solid and I hope the filmmakers find a way to make Pegg a regular in the series if "Ice Age" continues on as I expect it to.