Step 1: Thaw out in Jurassic Park with the fun-lovin’ Ice Age gang – and throw all logic out the window.
Step 2: Seriously, just go with it. No, it doesn’t make sense that dinosaurs would live in a tropical world underneath the Ice Age above, but that’s the premise of this third Ice Age installment, so we’ll accept it because we like hanging with Manny (voiced by Ray Romano), Sid (voiced by John Leguizamo) and Diego (voiced by Denis Leary). Manny is a nervous father-to-be this time around, as his wholly mammoth wife Ellie (voiced by Queen Latifah) is expecting, which sort of alienates him from both Diego and Sid. Diego feels like it might be time for him to leave this happy nest and go be a lone tiger again, while Sid wants a family of his own. And so when Sid falls through a hole in the ice into an underground cavern, he finds and steals three baby T-Rex eggs, setting off a chain of events that leads the Ice Age into the Jurassic Period.
Step 3: Watch them tap into their inner prehistoric animals once again. There’s an ease to Romano, Leguizamo and Leary’s banter, with Latifah continuing to add a nice dimension. Also along for the ride is Simon Pegg as Buck, a eye-patch wearing weasel who fell from the world above a long time ago and hunts dinosaurs with a fierce determination. Oh, and Scrat, the bucktoothed squirrel, finds a rival for his acorn – the lovely female Scratte, a squirrel who can fly. Nothing good can come of this.
Step 4: Ask yourself: Is third time a charm? Not really. Much like the Shrek franchise, neither this Ice Age sequel or its predecessor has been able to match the charm and humor of the original, yet they continue to make money therefore spawning more sequels. Honestly, I’m not sure where they’d go with a fourth installment. Maybe something to do with Manny and Ellie’s kid? Or maybe running into the human baby from the original, now all grown up and ready to hunt them? I just think stretching it anymore might ruin the magic forever.
Level of difficulty in watching Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs: Pretty easy. Kids will love it, but the Ice Age franchise is starting to spread itself a little thin in the story department.