Ice Age: The Meltdown

I know it's a shock but “Ice Age: The Meltdown” lives up to its title. Any fun and creativity in the original film was melted down into banal and forgettable setups and punch lines.

I liked the first film. It was a pleasing alternative to “Shrek” and I had a good time with it.

But at no point did I feel that I wanted to revisit the characters. Though since I think studios would make a film where Hitler castrates Gandhi if they thought it would make money, I’m not surprised the viewing public gets to deal with this piece of uninteresting celluloid.

Sure, kids across the world will drag their parents into theaters, and there aren’t many family films to choose from. Even so, this film wasn’t exactly totally kid safe.

There’s a boring story told by the wooly mammoth about burros, only he decides to mention that you can also call them “wild asses” and a pithy diatribe using the word “ass” as much as possible follows.

And one of the main subplots involves two creatures chasing down the herd of animals trying to escape the impending flood (don't bother asking more about the plot). If I were under 7, I might be inclined to have some nightmares about two non-speaking vicious animals eating animals in a cartoon. They even make those scenes seem a little like adult horror films.

I suppose both examples were to appeal to the adults in the audience but how is that kid friendly?

I’m sure there are other examples but I think my burrito is almost done in the microwave so I have to wrap this up quickly.

The one good thing about this installment of the franchise is that there are many interstitials of the squirrel chasing his nut … no, I don’t mean anything by that last comment.

Just about everything else is useless, not funny and excruciatingly dumb.

I was going to list the voice talent but I was so bored by the film that no one deserves being mentioned. It’s a waste of everyone’s time.

Look, the heart of the matter is that unless you have a young child refusing to eat until you bring them to this film, stay far, far away. “Ice Age: The Meltdown” gets a 2 out of 5.

I’ll have to hope the huge opening weekend doesn’t mean a third movie will hit movie theaters. Maybe it will get direct to DVD treatment and I won’t be tempted to watch it just so I can rip it apart.