Voices of Ray Romano, Queen Latifah, Denis Leary, John Leguizamo

Directors: Carlos Saldanha, Mike Thurmeier

The third part of the ‘Ice Age’ saga suffers from franchise fatigue—the critters, most of whom we are familiar with from the past couple of films, and some that have been added in – don’t really get to do much that’s fresh and new.

Here they are, one more time—woolly mammoths Manny and Ellie now getting ready for parenthood, saber-tooth tiger Diego scared of losing his edge, acorn-loving squirrel Scrat finding romance in Scratte, scatty sloth Sid stumbling upon dinosaur eggs.

That’s where the trouble starts. It’s not just Ellie who’s feeling the pangs of impending mommyhood; Sid thinks he’ll make a perfect parent, and so what if his offspring start slavering at flesh and wrinkling their noses at broccoli?

For a film aimed at tots, ‘Ice Age 3’ is surprisingly dark: the dino mom takes her babies and Sid-the-‘floppy green thing’ to a subterranean world where dinosaurs reign supreme, forcing the gang to pass through a scary valley called ‘The Chasm Of Death’.

The rescue mission is headed by a gabby, super-irritating one-eyed weasel called Buck who wants to defeat the very dangerous Rudy the giant T Rex.

While Manny and Diego fight off the advancing dinos, Ellie gives birth, and produces a perfectly peachy baby mammoth called, what else, Peaches. That’s all very cute, but what are little kids to make of conversations revolving around ‘contractions’, and `hormonal imbalances’?

The chases (in animation movies, everyone chases everyone else) are fine, though. Just make sure you take the slightly older children, who can enjoy the action and at least some of the words.

... contd.