SCREEN IT! PARENTAL REVIEW: ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS

"ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS"
(2009) (voices of Ray Romano, John Leguizamo) (PG-13)

Alcohol/ Drugs	Blood/Gore	Disrespectful/ Bad Attitude	Frightening/ Tense Scenes	Guns/ Weapons
Minor	Minor	Moderate	Moderate	Minor

Imitative Behavior	Jump Scenes	Music (Scary/Tense)	Music (Inappropriate)	Profanity
Mild	None	Extreme	None	None

Sex/ Nudity	Smoking	Tense Family Scenes	Topics To Talk About	Violence
Mild	None	Mild	Mild	Moderate

QUICK TAKE:: Animated Comedy: An unlikely group of prehistoric mammals must not only contend with the pending arrival of a baby mammoth in their fold but also the discovery of an underground tropical paradise, some dinosaur babies, a swashbuckling weasel, and the huge dinosaur he's been battling for years.

PLOT:

Having survived the previous meltdown of their ice age world that's now returned to its snowy status, Manny the mammoth (voice of RAY ROMANO) and his mate Ellie (voice of QUEEN LATIFAH) are expecting their first child, all of which has left Diego the saber-toothed tiger (voice of DENIS LEARY) and Sid the sloth (voice of JOHN LEGUIZAMO) feeling like third and fourth wheels.

Having lost his edge and stamina in hunting down prey, Diego thinks it's time for him to move on, while Sid feels he's losing his unorthodox family and longs to have one of his own. When he ends up falling through a layer of ice down into a hidden cave, he "adopts" three eggs, unaware that they're about to hatch into baby T-Rexes.

Yet, rather than eat him, the three baby dinos (that are bigger than him) view Sid as their mother, a development that doesn't sit well with their real and significantly larger mom who carries them and Sid back into her underground tropical world where all manners of other dinosaurs exist.

Despite Ellie being near labor at any moment, she, Manny and Sid, along with possums Crash (voice of SEANN WILLIAM SCOTT) and Eddie (voice of JOSH PECK), set out on a rescue mission. Their unexpected guide into this prehistoric world is Buck (voice of SIMON PEGG), a one-eyed swashbuckling weasel who wants to get his revenge on an enormous T-Rex he's nicknamed Rudy.

While saber-toothed squirrel Scrat continues his obsession with getting his paws on the ever-elusive acorn and must contend with competition from female saber-toothed squirrel Scratte, the unlikely group of mammals set out to find and rescue Sid, all while trying to avoid the monstrous carnivore that would like to make lunch of all of them.

WILL KIDS WANT TO SEE IT?: If they're fans of either of the first two "Ice Age" films, they probably will.

WHY THE MPAA RATED IT: PG: For some mild rude humor and peril

CAST AS ROLE MODELS:: It's debatable whether kids view animated, non-human characters as role models, but here's a quick look at them:; MANNY is the mammoth who's now focused solely on the pending birth of his child, to the detriment of his friends Sid and Diego.
SID is the somewhat dimwitted and goofy sloth who feels he's losing his only family with Manny and Ellie about to start theirs, and thus wants his own. Accordingly, he unofficially adopts three baby T-Rexes, but must contend with their mother not being happy about his choice.
DIEGO is the saber-toothed tiger who's concerned that he's lost his hunting edge and thus decides to head out on his own, but then joins the search and rescue mission for Sid.
CRASH and EDDIE are possums who join the search and rescue mission and are additional comic relief for the film.
ELLIE is Manny's mate who's about to give birth to their child, but forges ahead with their efforts to save Sid.
BUCK is a swashbuckling and somewhat deranged weasel who has a Captain Ahab complex in that he's all consumed with battling the enormous T-Rex that took his eye in the past. He leads the others on their rescue mission and through various adventures.; SID is the somewhat dimwitted and goofy sloth who feels he's losing his only family with Manny and Ellie about to start theirs, and thus wants his own. Accordingly, he unofficially adopts three baby T-Rexes, but must contend with their mother not being happy about his choice.
DIEGO is the saber-toothed tiger who's concerned that he's lost his hunting edge and thus decides to head out on his own, but then joins the search and rescue mission for Sid.
CRASH and EDDIE are possums who join the search and rescue mission and are additional comic relief for the film.
ELLIE is Manny's mate who's about to give birth to their child, but forges ahead with their efforts to save Sid.
BUCK is a swashbuckling and somewhat deranged weasel who has a Captain Ahab complex in that he's all consumed with battling the enormous T-Rex that took his eye in the past. He leads the others on their rescue mission and through various adventures.; DIEGO is the saber-toothed tiger who's concerned that he's lost his hunting edge and thus decides to head out on his own, but then joins the search and rescue mission for Sid.
CRASH and EDDIE are possums who join the search and rescue mission and are additional comic relief for the film.
ELLIE is Manny's mate who's about to give birth to their child, but forges ahead with their efforts to save Sid.
BUCK is a swashbuckling and somewhat deranged weasel who has a Captain Ahab complex in that he's all consumed with battling the enormous T-Rex that took his eye in the past. He leads the others on their rescue mission and through various adventures.; CRASH and EDDIE are possums who join the search and rescue mission and are additional comic relief for the film.
ELLIE is Manny's mate who's about to give birth to their child, but forges ahead with their efforts to save Sid.
BUCK is a swashbuckling and somewhat deranged weasel who has a Captain Ahab complex in that he's all consumed with battling the enormous T-Rex that took his eye in the past. He leads the others on their rescue mission and through various adventures.; ELLIE is Manny's mate who's about to give birth to their child, but forges ahead with their efforts to save Sid.
BUCK is a swashbuckling and somewhat deranged weasel who has a Captain Ahab complex in that he's all consumed with battling the enormous T-Rex that took his eye in the past. He leads the others on their rescue mission and through various adventures.; BUCK is a swashbuckling and somewhat deranged weasel who has a Captain Ahab complex in that he's all consumed with battling the enormous T-Rex that took his eye in the past. He leads the others on their rescue mission and through various adventures.

CAST, CREW, & TECHNICAL INFO

HOW OTHERS RATED THIS MOVIE

Curious if this title is entertaining, any good, and/or has any artistic merit?
Then read OUR TAKE of this film.

(Note: The "Our Take" review of this title examines the film's artistic merits and does not take into account any of the possibly objectionable material listed below).

OUR WORD TO PARENTS:

The following is a brief summary of the content found in this computer-animated comedy that's been rated PG. No profanity is present, but various colorful phrases are uttered. Some non-explicit, but sexually related comments are present, as are two jokes related to male genitalia.

Violence consists of dinosaurs trying to kill or eat other characters, the hitting of the same, as well as all sorts of slapstick style material. Some scenes of peril (particularly those involving the menacing looking and/or attacking dinosaurs) might be unsettling, suspenseful and/or scary for very young viewers, while some behavior might be enticing for kids to imitate.

Some characters get silly after breathing in the equivalent of laughing gas, while crude humor is present, as are some bad attitudes. Should you still be concerned about the film's appropriateness for yourself or anyone else in your home, you may want to look more closely at our detailed listings for more specific information regarding the film's content.

For those prone to visually induced motion sickness, there's a running chase scene through tight quarters, seen in a point of view fashion.

ALCOHOL OR DRUG USE: Manny, Diego, the possums and then Buck all end up affected by inadvertently breathing in some sort of gas while suspended in a chasm that not only gives them high-pitched voices, but also the giggles, as in some sort of laughing gas.

BLOOD/GORE: Sid orders one of the dinosaur babies to "barf him up," and thus the dino regurgitates a bird and then a mammal baby, both of which are slimy but alive.
After a carnivorous plants swells and then bursts open, freeing Manny, Diego and Buck, another character comments on them being "barfed up" by a plant.
Buck comments on a scent that smells like a buzzard's butt fell off.
Buck states that one of his rules is that he who has gas travels in the back of the pack.
Due to swaying beneath a T-Rex carrying him by his tail, Sid appears ready to vomit and must hold that in. He then ends up inside the dinosaur's nose, states "Nice mucous," and is then blown out, covered in that.
While laughing uncontrollably from inhaling some sort of gas, one possum admits that he sometimes wets his bed. The other says that's okay as he sometimes wets the bed of the first one.
After being swallowed, we see Buck inside a dinosaur's huge mouth, holding onto the uvula above the enormous tongue (kids may think all of that's gross).
One possum cries and blows its nose in the tail of the other.

DISRESPECTFUL/BAD ATTITUDE: Sid thinks an overweight female character is pregnant, prompting her to whack him with a stick that she then throws at him.
Manny has something of a bad and even slightly condescending attitude toward Sid and his ability to have his own family.
Sid takes the T-Rex eggs for his own and then doesn't want their real mother to have them back once they've hatched.

FRIGHTENING SCENES: Scenes listed here and under "Violence" may be unsettling, suspenseful and/or scary to very young viewers, especially when viewed in 3-D (in select theaters) that might be a bit more intense than in non 3-D.
In hunting mode, Diego rapidly chases after a scared looking deer, but his vision turns blurry and he then slows down, out of breath.
Sid ends up running into various things and being bashed about while sliding down a snowy hill trying to catch and protect three large dinosaur eggs (played for adventure and comedy, but some younger kids might worry about the eggs).
We hear a thunderous growl from down inside a cave.
Scrat and Scratte land in a tar pit, but then float up from that in bubbles.
We hear a thunderous footstep and roar from an unseen T-Rex. We then see the dinosaur, and the much smaller mammal characters all appear scared, and try to freeze and remain hidden. But one runs, prompting the others to do the same when the T-Rex chases after them. Sid tries to protect his dino babies, but the adult T-Rex rips off his "roof" covering and picks up him and three dino babies by their tales, carrying them off.
Buck shows the others that the only way down into a lower cave is via a huge dinosaur skeleton's ribcage that's suspended on ropes like a cable car. Ellie goes first with Buck, but the rest get stuck on the second trip, getting high pitched voices and laughing fits due to the gas they're breathing in. It's then pointed out that others previously in the same situation died laughing, and we see skeletons of various animals below that (but everything turns out okay).
A large and menacing looking dinosaur tries to hit various characters with its huge, spiked tail. During that, Diego nearly falls off a cliff after saving one character from being hit.
Large tendrils yank Manny and Diego up into the air and then down into a huge carnivorous plant. When Ellie says she'll uproot it, Buck warns that they'll then be stuck inside forever, so he zips down into the plant that begins filling with some sort of liquid. He goes under the surface to cut one "cable," prompting the plant to fill up rapidly, leaving all of them underwater. Buck then struggles to find his knife and cuts the other "cable," prompting the plant to swell and then burst open.
The T-Rex nearly eats Sid.
The group encounters what appears to be the close-by face of a large and menacing dinosaur, but that turns out to be the markings on a huge butterfly.
We see the huge foot of the gargantuan dinosaur, indicating its immense size.
We see a flashback to Buck battling "Rudy" (the gargantuan dinosaur) in a thunderstorm at night. During that, Buck is slashed across the face with a huge claw (no blood or gore), and then quickly dons a patch across his eye. He's then up on a lone branch above a cloud bank through which a mass of clouds rises, with glowing eyes in that. It then comes at Buck and he's swallowed, followed by a view of him inside the dino's huge mouth, holding on to the uvula from which he swings and blasts out through the mouth, knocking out a tooth in the process.
Ellie wakes up to find herself alone and slowly walks along, encountering some menacing eyes, but Manny then wakes up from his nightmare that featured all of that.
Scrat holds onto a vine with one paw and an unconscious Scratte with the other, and both dangle above lava, with Scrat eventually swinging them out of danger.
Manny, Diego, Ellie and others walk along a path of barely balanced rock platforms that start to give way beneath their weight, all as some menacing raptor-looking dinosaurs spot their predicament and start moving toward them.
We see Rudy the gargantuan dinosaur's feet near Sid, with him panicking to get away. He tries hiding in a huge log but the dinosaur breaks it, with Sid then ending up on a floating but shrinking piece of rock in a lava flow that's headed toward a lava waterfall.
Ellie starts having labor pains in the middle of a perilous moment as menacing raptor-type dinosaurs approach. Diego gets up to her and defends her from them (hitting and knocking them away), while Manny stays below, doing the same.
Buck and the possums end up flying on the back of a pterodactyl type bird, but other flying predators take flight after them, resulting in an aerial chase. During that, the possums throw berries that knock aside the pursuers one by one, but their pterodactyl ends up knocked out and falls from the sky, with Buck doing everything he can to wake up the bird before they crash (he barely does and they pull up just in time to barely skim over the ground).
Rudy chases all of the characters, including trying to bite, step on and slap Buck with its tail. The group then manages to wrap vines around the dino, sending him falling to the ground. Sid then accidentally breaks one vine, allowing the dino to free itself and come at him, but a smaller female T-Rex smashes into Rudy, driving the dino off a cliff (we don't see the impact below).

GUNS/WEAPONS: Buck carries around a knife made from a T-Rex tooth.

IMITATIVE BEHAVIOR: Phrases: "Don't freak out the baby," "Freaked out," "Don't let it hit you on the butt on the way out," "Egg-sicle," "A lone, lonely loner," "C'mon, barf him up," "Bro," "You lunatic," "Talk to the trunk," "No pain, no gain," "Round is foxy," "Are you nuts?" "Yabba-dabba-do," "Don't ever yabba-dabba do that again," "Dude, you're awesome," "Off you pop," "Deranged hermit," "Great wise weasely one," "Mate," "Aye-Aye," "That's so cool," "Welcome to my world," "Yada-yada-yada," "Barfed up by a plant," "Nice mucous," "He's an idiot," "That was gas talk," "My bad," "He's whacko," "Totally bonkers," "Shut up," "Take a load off," "You're super weasel," "Diesel weasel," "Are you plucking my whiskers?" "Exactly when did you lose your mind?" "Sloth down," "My paws are burning," "Twinkle-toes," "Bring it on you chicken-headed freaks," "Hasta la vista, birdy," "I liked you guys better when you were extinct," "Over here you colossal fossil," "Wuss" and "Way to go mama-zilla."
A deer taunts an out of breath Diego for falling to catch him and prances and dances about.
Manny punches Diego in the shoulder (as a "guy thing" to do). Diego later does the same back to Manny.
We see that Sid has drawn cartoon like faces on the three large eggs he's found.
One baby dino belches, followed by other dinosaurs in another scene doing the same.
Scratte kicks Scrat in the crotch to get the acorn from him.

JUMP SCENES: None.

MUSIC (SCARY/TENSE): An extreme amount of suspenseful, ominous and action-oriented music plays in the film.

MUSIC (INAPPROPRIATE): None.

PROFANITY: None.

SEX/NUDITY: Scratte does a bit of a sexy dance for Scrat, sashaying about a bit, but only as a diversion to get a prized acorn away from him.
Needing milk for his new dinosaur babies, Sid goes up to a grazing ox, reaches under all of the long hair and gives something a yank (we hear the sound of that). We next see him running away from the angry ox, stating he thought it was a female (meaning he yanked on the unseen penis).
After telling Ellie she's round, Manny says that "round is foxy."
While stuck inside a carnivorous plant, Diego states that he feels tingly, with Manny telling him not to say that when pressed up against him. Diego then says he's not talking about that kind of tingly.
Buck talks of the time he used a sharpened clamshell to turn a T-Rex into a T-Rachel.
When Diego tells Manny he'll cover his back, Buck wonders about that phrase, saying he'd rather cover the front as that's where all of the good stuff is.
Sid sees Ellie's baby mammoth and states, "It's a boy." When Diego points out that's its tail, Sid states, "It's a girl."

SMOKING: None.

TENSE FAMILY SCENES: Manny worries about Ellie and her being close to being in labor, all while in danger.

TOPICS TO TALK ABOUT: What constitutes a family.
Manny tells Ellie that guys don't talk guy stuff with other guys.
Buck comments on a colorful butterfly that takes flight, saying he new him when he was a caterpillar "before he came out."

VIOLENCE: Scratte and Scrat struggle over an acorn, with him whipping her about until she lets go and flies off a cliff. He then jumps after her, with both falling, but she then reveals she's a flying squirrel and thus slows her descent, while he crashes into a body of water below (played for laughs and he's unhurt).
Various characters run over Scrat on their way somewhere, with Manny ending up getting knocked off a cliff, but he lands and bounces around trees and is okay.
Sid thinks an overweight female character is pregnant, prompting her to whack him with a stick that she then throws at him.
Manny punches Diego in the shoulder (as a "guy thing" to do).
Sid falls through a hole in the ice and lands hard down inside a cave.
Sid ends up running into various things and being bashed about while sliding down a snowy hill trying to catch and protect three large dinosaur eggs (played for adventure and comedy).
Sid falls through some ice.
The rambunctious dinosaur babies throw and knock mammal children about in a playful fashion, with one being pushed into the open mouth of one of those large baby dinos. We then see that they wrecked Manny's playground for his yet-to-be born child.
One possum slaps another down some ice.
A large and menacing looking dinosaur tries to hit various characters with its huge, spiked tail. During that, Diego nearly falls off a cliff after saving one character from being hit.
A tree falls on and rolls over Scrat, with him then being stuck in the sap. Scratte then comes along and yanks the acorn away from him, pulling off a big patch of his chest fur with that.
Large tendrils yank Manny and Diego up into the air and then down into a huge carnivorous plant. When Ellie says she'll uproot it, Buck warns that they'll then be stuck inside forever, so he zips down into the plant that begins filling with some sort of liquid. He goes under the surface to cut one "cable," prompting the plant to fill up rapidly, leaving all of them underwater. Buck then struggles to find his knife and cuts the other "cable," prompting the plant to swell and then burst open.
A seemingly dead bird is dropped down for the young dinos for dinner (comically contorted), but Sid stops them from eating it, and then discovers it's still alive. He then drops the bird off a cliff so that it can fly to safety, but it can't fly and plummets out of sight (we don't see the impact).
We see a flashback to Buck battling "Rudy" (the gargantuan dinosaur) in a thunderstorm at night. During that, Buck is slashed across the face with a huge claw (no blood or gore), and then quickly dons a patch across his eye. He's then up on a lone branch above a cloud bank through which a mass of clouds rises, with glowing eyes in that. It then comes at Buck and he's swallowed, followed by a view of him inside the dino's huge mouth, holding on to the uvula from which he swings and blasts out through the mouth, knocking out a tooth in the process.
Scratte kicks Scrat in the crotch to get the acorn from him.
We see two imagined views of Buck describing Sid's possible encounter with a T-Rex. The first shows him hitting the dinosaur with some broccoli, while the second has the dino swallowing him.
Ellie starts having labor pains in the middle of a perilous moment as menacing raptor-type dinosaurs approach. Diego gets up to her and defends her from them (hitting and knocking them away), while Manny stays below, doing the same.
One possum slaps the other.
Buck and the possums end up flying on the back of a pterodactyl type bird, but other flying predators take flight after them, resulting in an aerial chase. During that, the possums throw berries that knock aside the pursuers one by one, but their pterodactyl ends up knocked out and falls from the sky, with Buck doing everything he can to wake up the bird before they crash (he barely does and they pull up just in time to barely skim over the ground).
Rudy chases all of the characters, including trying to bite, step on and slap Buck with its tail. The group then manages to wrap vines around the dino, sending him falling to the ground. Sid then accidentally breaks one vine, allowing the dino to free itself and come at him, but a smaller female T-Rex smashes into Rudy, driving the dino off a cliff (we don't see the impact below).
Manny whacks Sid.
Diego punches Manny's shoulder in a guy-type way.

Reviewed June 27, 2009 / Posted July 1, 2009

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