Starring (the voices of): Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Dennis Leary, Queen Latifah
Cert: U
Released: 7th April 2006

Sid the sloth (Leguizamo) has gained himself some responsibility in the construction of a prehistoric water park designed from the natural ice slides in the glaciers around him. Of course the children pay no attention to him to the extent of using him as a piņata but he feels this is a step in the right direction of gaining some respect from his peers. Manny the mammoth (Romano) and Diego the sabretooth tiger deride him as much as ever.

During a suicidal attempt to ride the largest water slide that the three discover the wall of the glacier is melting and the mile high ocean that rests the other side will soon be deluging the mammals' quaint basin home.

The good news is that the vultures will soon have plenty to eat.

There is, however, sanctuary at the other end of the valley in the shape of a 'boat' that will carry all the residents to safety but they had all better get moving.

On the way, Manny contemplates the possibility that he might be the last of his species until they run into two possums and their deluded sister, Ellie (Latifah) who is a mammoth that thinks she's like her brothers.

Manny is torn between disliking her because she's obviously insane, liking her because she's pretty (for a mammoth), liking her because she offers the chance to repopulate their species and staying away from her because of the pain he still feels for his last family (see Ice Age).

As they travel together, their progression is met with all kinds of obstacles including mutual attraction, Diego's fear of water, pigmy sloths, a couple of thawed, carnivorous amphibians and a wake of hungry, Lionel Bart loving vultures.

Oh yeah, and Scrat the squirrel tries to keep his hands on that ever evasive acorn.

Ice Age was a good film that seemed to have swept through the cinemas under the radar of most audiences. Being released by the third studio to jump on the computer animated bandwagon after Pixar/Disney (Toy Story, etc) and Dreamworks (Shrek) and even second place on the prehistoric variants after Disney's Dinosaur. On top of that, let's face it, the actually characterisations themselves are pretty odd after every other studio strains that bit harder for a greater edge of 'realism' in their actors, Fox creates these finely rendered almost-caricatures.

Never the less, a cracking film it is and did enough business (potentially in DVD sales after release) to warrant this sequel. Either that or they had nothing else to do.

The leading roles are the same; stupid Sid, grumpy Manny and alpha-male Diego but that's never enough for a sequel. Gone is the dodgy potato-like baby and in his place is a plethora of alternative animals. The female mammoth who, obviously, has been raised by possums creates some humorous dynamics but dry up relatively quickly. Her siblings, Crash and Eddie (voiced by Seann William Scott and Josh Peck) are feisty, streetwise rodents who provide an irritation factor. Other diversions include Jay Leno's snake-oil sales-aardvark and the carnivorous amphibians that make more of a threatening presence than the sabretooth pack from the first.

An edge of the original's innocence is lost with this one as the characters' potential demise is more boding: the flood, being eaten and extinction. There is also the obvious question that may come up as to what do mammoths have to do to repopulate their species?

The witty banter is still there and an abundance of cultural references to keep kids of all ages laughing but there seemed to be a lack of cohesiveness in the storyline. It watched more like the writers had a number of set pieces and used the journey premise to try to tie it together.

Scrat is more of a predominant feature in this one and actually has a better constructed story than the main theme. Instead of the arbitrary collection of acorns he had in the first he has one nut that continues to elude him. It has become evident that if any animal could claim to be his descendant then it would be Wile E Coyote. My only gripe about Scrat's involvement, again, comes down to an increasingly evident lack of content; the two 'teaser' trailers I saw with Scrat were actually chunks of the actual film.

No less funny than the first but still a little dry. However, the lack of plot contrivances, excellent animation and great characterisations should keep the kids attentive and amused for the ninety minutes.