Ice Age has an unexpected warmth and enough funny lines to make this prehistoric road trip a family-friendly journey.
The screenplay by Michael Berg, Michael J. Wilson and Peter Ackerman nicely balances verbal and visual gags, with just enough moments of peril and slam-bang action sequences to make the trek far from boring, even for the youngest of viewers. The animation is also quite competent, with some of the characters drawn in a style that makes them look slightly less evolved than others.
In terms of energy, though, this film feels like a good-but-not great entry in the CGI animation derby, and that's really my only complaint. There were times when the mammoth plodded along that it felt as if things could have been livelier. But "Ice Age" is still an entertaining family film--and I mean for the whole family.
Video:
The Blu-ray version looks awfully good, as one might have expected with a CGI animated feature. The source materials were nearly pristine, and so is the AVC transfer at 16mbps. "Ice Age" is presented in 1.85:1 widescreen, which fills out the entire 16x9" monitor. Because of all that white, the colors don't appear to be fully saturated unless you isolate a character and see that there really is an intensity there. With so much white, it would be easy for things to look washed out, but that's not the case at all. It's an excellent picture, with sharp detail and no ragged edges.
Audio:
Fox went with a DTS HD 5.1 Master Lossless Audio on this one, and the soundtrack uses the full range of speakers. There are plenty of effects sounds that travel across the speakers, and a nice wide spread across the front. The bass is strong without excessive rumbling, and you notice this particularly in the avalanche sequence. Additional sound options are Spanish and French 5.1 Dolby Digital, with subtitles in English (CC), Spanish, Cantonese, and Korean.
Extras:
When it takes so long to bring out a catalog title, why not go with a 50GB disc instead of a 25, so you can include all the bonus features from the two-disc DVD Special Edition? I don't know who's making these decisions at Fox, but it would seem to me that fans would pay a couple-three dollars extra to see a few more bonus features and stop having to house two versions of the same film. The DVD had three games; this one has ZIP. The DVD had a ton of short features that showed the animation team at their computers and storyboards discussing the film, with different angle options; this one has ZIP.
What this Blu-ray does have is the same commentary by director Chris Wedge and co-director Carlos Saldanha, which is decent but has more dead air than you'd expect. Their most interesting remarks come when they talk about why studios use big-name actors. Apparently, for an animated feature, the director really relies on an actor's ability to ad-lib and be spontaneous in order to keep it fresh. It's a good but not great commentary that also covers how the Scrat squirrel character came into being. Speaking of which, another feature that made it from the DVD to Blu-ray is "Gone Nutty," the hilarious animated short featuring that Ice Age squirrel. Another carry-over is a handful of deleted scenes, playable with or without an introduction from Wedge.
Compared to the two-disc DVD, the bonus features are a disappointment. As I said, why not go 50 gig on this one and give people the full "Bunny" (the name of the Oscar-winning short that also turns up MIA on this disc)?
Bottom Line:
I personally thought that "Ice Age 2: The Meltdown" was funnier and more energized, but "Ice Age" has an unexpected warmth and enough funny lines to make this prehistoric road trip a family-friendly journey.
In terms of energy, though, this film feels like a good-but-not great entry in the CGI animation derby, and that's really my only complaint. There were times when the mammoth plodded along that it felt as if things could have been livelier. But "Ice Age" is still an entertaining family film--and I mean for the whole family.
Video:
The Blu-ray version looks awfully good, as one might have expected with a CGI animated feature. The source materials were nearly pristine, and so is the AVC transfer at 16mbps. "Ice Age" is presented in 1.85:1 widescreen, which fills out the entire 16x9" monitor. Because of all that white, the colors don't appear to be fully saturated unless you isolate a character and see that there really is an intensity there. With so much white, it would be easy for things to look washed out, but that's not the case at all. It's an excellent picture, with sharp detail and no ragged edges.
Audio:
Fox went with a DTS HD 5.1 Master Lossless Audio on this one, and the soundtrack uses the full range of speakers. There are plenty of effects sounds that travel across the speakers, and a nice wide spread across the front. The bass is strong without excessive rumbling, and you notice this particularly in the avalanche sequence. Additional sound options are Spanish and French 5.1 Dolby Digital, with subtitles in English (CC), Spanish, Cantonese, and Korean.
Extras:
When it takes so long to bring out a catalog title, why not go with a 50GB disc instead of a 25, so you can include all the bonus features from the two-disc DVD Special Edition? I don't know who's making these decisions at Fox, but it would seem to me that fans would pay a couple-three dollars extra to see a few more bonus features and stop having to house two versions of the same film. The DVD had three games; this one has ZIP. The DVD had a ton of short features that showed the animation team at their computers and storyboards discussing the film, with different angle options; this one has ZIP.
What this Blu-ray does have is the same commentary by director Chris Wedge and co-director Carlos Saldanha, which is decent but has more dead air than you'd expect. Their most interesting remarks come when they talk about why studios use big-name actors. Apparently, for an animated feature, the director really relies on an actor's ability to ad-lib and be spontaneous in order to keep it fresh. It's a good but not great commentary that also covers how the Scrat squirrel character came into being. Speaking of which, another feature that made it from the DVD to Blu-ray is "Gone Nutty," the hilarious animated short featuring that Ice Age squirrel. Another carry-over is a handful of deleted scenes, playable with or without an introduction from Wedge.
Compared to the two-disc DVD, the bonus features are a disappointment. As I said, why not go 50 gig on this one and give people the full "Bunny" (the name of the Oscar-winning short that also turns up MIA on this disc)?
Bottom Line:
I personally thought that "Ice Age 2: The Meltdown" was funnier and more energized, but "Ice Age" has an unexpected warmth and enough funny lines to make this prehistoric road trip a family-friendly journey.
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