Ice Age

When Ice Age graced our cinema screens early in 2002, I initially shied away from what seemed to be just another computer-animated film riding on the coat-tails of the genre’s mammoth box-office success. Certainly Fox’s stifling marketing campaign did nothing to help its cause, but maybe I was a touch hasty. For Ice Age, the latest collaboration between Fox Animation - the team responsible for mixed-media mega-flop Titan A.E - and newcomers Blue Sky Studios, is one of the funniest computer animated feature films to be released thus far.

Opening upon a frozen wasteland, Ice Age initially introduces us to a determined be-fanged squirrel (Scrat) who’s trying to stash his beloved acorn against the coming winter. Narrowly escaping a huge avalanche (of his own creation), he is squashed flat by a column of large beasties migrating south to escape the approaching winter. Going against the tide, and walking into almost certain death, is Manny (Ray Romano), a huge hairy mammoth with a depressive disposition. Much to his chagrin, Manny is soon joined by Sid (John Leguizamo); an annoying sloth who has been abandoned by his lethargic compatriots and is on the run from a pair of psychotic rhinos. When the bickering duo come across a Neanderthal child left all alone in the wilderness, they resolve to return little ‘Pinky’ to his herd. However, little do they know that Pinky’s separation from his family was the work of a ferocious pack of sabretooth tigers, and soon they are joined by Diego (Denis Leary), a scheming member of the pack who offers his services as tracker and guide. Of course Diego harbours secret plans to retrieve the baby and provide his pack with a mammoth-sized dinner. And so this mismatched trio of social outcasts, baby in hand, begin the long march to the human’s winter refuge..

Now, if you think that this plot bears an uncanny resemblance to both Shrek and Monsters, Inc. then, well, you’d be right. Although Ice Age was reportedly in production well before Monsters, Inc., this isn’t the first time (A Bug’s Life vs Antz anyone?) that parallel productions in this genre have borne a peculiarly close resemblance. But this aside, the film’s wonderful animation and comedic characterisations manage to differentiate Ice Age from its competitors. Besides that, you could count on two fingers the number of computer animated films (and all children’s film for that matter), that aren’t based on that old kiddies cinema stalwart - the buddy film.

In fact, Ice Age represents a rather refreshing entrant into the genre. What really sets it apart is its move away from the quest for hyper-reality that has characterised this ever-improving medium to date. Leaving aside the genre’s quest for realism, the producers of Ice Age have gone for a more stylised look and feel; what you might call an almost ‘cartoonish’ approach. To this end, with the exception of an exquisitely crafted river, the film’s barren landscapes are rather simplistic (yet convincing), and the character-designs emphasise character traits rather than anatomically correctness. In true Looney Tunes style, the tried and trusted animation technique of super-deformation is also used to great comical effect. Eyes bulge, limbs splay, characters are flattened and generally contorted to fit the comic mood.

Reminiscent of old Chuck Jones cartoons, the results work beautifully to set and maintain the film's hilarious tone; complimented nicely by a wonderful voice cast. The real test of a voice performance comes when you start to recognise the voice as character rather than actor (something I never achieved, incidentally, with Billy Crystal and John Goodman in Monsters, Inc.) and all three leads achieve this admirably. In his role as comic relief, John Leguizamo is particularly good with his lishping sloth Sid, but even Ray Romano's deadpan New York delivery is lost beneath a mountain of mammoth fur.

Like the stunning computer generated features from Pixar and Dreamworks that have preceded it, Ice Age’s anamorphic widscreen transfer has been drawn directly from the film’s digital source, and the results are a clean, crisp DVD image that is devoid of all the usual film and film-to-video nasties. With its icy, wasteland setting, the general level of detail displayed by Ice Age is somewhat lower than genre stable-mates Monsters, Inc., Shrek or even A Bug’s Life with their rich environments, but what detail the film does contain is visible in each and every digital frame. While the fur donned by the film’s various beasties is not quite as realistic as that created by Pixar for Monsters, Inc., it's still damned impressive (every ‘strand’ is clearly visible) and serves its owners well. Additionally, visual effects such as mist, smoke and driving snow all look wonderful, as do the rendered rivers and waterfalls.

As you can imagine, apart from a hell-of-a-lot of white, Ice Age doesn’t display the array of vivid colours that we have come to expect from the genre. Although there’s a smattering of colour to be seen in some azure ice caves, a little glowing red lava and a deep blue sky, the lead characters display the drab hues of real(ish) animals (predominantly greys, browns and yellows). But what we do get looks beautiful, and with a film containing so much of the soft white stuff, the animators have gone to great lengths to reproduce it perfectly. Indeed, the ice and snow displays an surprisingly impressive amount of detail (who would have guessed?), and the many shades of white on display are complimented by excellent contrast and perfect black level.

In terms of compression artefacts, I did spot one or two minor instances of posterisation and chroma noise, but such is the case with every title in this demanding genre. The casual viewer will most certainly miss these completely and, all in all, Ice Age more than matches the heavies of the genre. It certainly won't disappoint you DVD aficionados.

While not the most impressive soundtrack in the genre, Ice Age still manages to make good use of that expensive home theatre setup. While the all-important dialogue remains clear and distinct from the centre speaker, the remaining channels are used to great affect to create an immersive viewing experience and bring life to the film’s prehistoric setting. With impressive front-to back and swirling directional effects, all five channels are utilised to great effect throughout the feature to provide an impressive level of ambience; thunder rolls across the room, lightning cracks, wind howls and rain falls. Good channel separation across the front and rear channels targets things like falling debris (a very common occurrence) to all corners of the soundstage. The subwoofer also gets a great workout, with several crashing avalanches, the heavy gait of mammoth and charging rhino, the dull thud of suicidal dodos and the roar of exploding volcanoes to keep it occupied. Rounding out the package is David Newman’s dramatic score that, balanced nicely between the front and rear channels, compliments the on-screen action and completes the immersive viewing experience.

Despite not expanding to a second extras disc (as seems to be the norm these days), with Ice Age’s relatively short running time there is still plenty of room on the dual layer disc for tons of supplementary material...

• Commentary – Directors Chris Wedge and Carlos Saldahna: Recorded together, these two guys talk continuously and enthusiastically about their creation, covering all aspects of the creative process. Chris does a little more talking than Carlos, and the results are an engaging and entertaining commentary that, thankfully, isn't aimed at the kiddies.

• Scrat's Missing Adventure - Gone Nutty: (4:35) Scrat the be-fanged squirrel cements his place as the Wile E. Coyote of the new millennium with this short, extremely funny cartoon. With its widescreen (1.85:1) anamorphic transfer, it looks as good as the feature itself.

• Deleted Scenes: Removed scenes are atypical for animated features – the prohibitive cost of development meaning that these films are cut in pre-production. However, presented here (in non-anamorphic widescreen ) we have six such scenes, all but one receiving their final render. We are also introduced to Sid’s love interest Sylia; a character who didn’t make the final cut. An optional commentary from Chris Wedge and Carlos Saldanha gives the reasons for their eventual removal.

• Sid on Sid: (3 minutes) Sid sits in the movie theatre and talk his way through some of the film’s scenes, talking up his involvement in proceedings, his contribution to the film, his acting talent, etc. Pretty funny.

• Scrat Reveals: Three short segments (all under 15 seconds) see Scrat reveal the Fox logo in many and varied ways. Maybe used on the Fox network? I dunno, but they’re still kinda funny...

• Animation Progression: The multi-language feature is used to great effect here to provide comparison between storyboards, 3D layout, un-rendered animation, and the final render. Three separate scenes are presented: Scrat’s opening scene (2:54), the lava escape (2:53), and the sabretooth tiger attack (1:52).

• International Ice Age: (2:42) The nappy changing scene is presented with a sequence of every changing voice artists from the various international releases.

• Under the Ice: A plethora of material, starting with...
  • An in-depth Making of (20 minutes) that provides interviews and footage from the production offices to show all aspects of the animation process, from characterisation, modelling, and storyboarding through programming and visual effects.

  • Behind the Scenes (13:28) then follows with Ray Romano gaggin' it up and intercut with tons of film footage, interviews with Denis Leary, John Leguizamo and director Chris Wedge, and production footage all spliced together with MTV cuts to produce a pretty amusing, high-energy look at the film.

  • Six other short segments covering the animation controls, (especially those providing the super-deformation), the animators' acting skills, special effects, lighting, and Sid’s voice development.

• Trailers: We get teaser as well as two full theatrical trailers.

• Design Galleries: There are two gallery options...
  • In the first entitled Create Your Own Ice Age Gallery you have the option of ordering the images as you would like to see them, and then cycling through them.

  • In the second, entitled Size Comparison/The Science Behind Ice Age the various creatures are presented, all to correct scale, with a small amount of information about the background to the species.

And all this is accessed with some nicely animated non-anamorphic menus that feature some of the film’s funnier moments! Impressive.

Playing for slapstick laughs rather than render-inspired gasps, Ice Age is one of the funniest animated feature films thus far. Displaying that ageless quality that typifies old Warner cartoons and filled to the brim with laugh-out-load moments, Ice Age will appeal to both children and adults alike. Looking stunning on DVD, this is one release you won’t want to miss this year.