Of Dinos and Mammoths. Oh and Sid.

(Day 30 of 112)

So as the post title suggests, I saw Ice Age 3. And the one thing I’m very sure of is that on going home, all the kiddies in the theatre will be asking their parents where babies come from. I just hope the parents are as good at answering awkward questions as they are at not-controlling their progeny and the (rotten) apples of their eyes.

Anywho, leaving non-disciplined children and their mothers/caregivers aside, the movie by itself left me scratching my head a little bit. I mean, why do threequels (a word I made up I think) always have to be about the protagonists having children? I mean, Shrek had them. And now Manny? At least this time around Manny wasn’t doing the clichéd guy-freaking-out-about-becoming-a-father thing. Some small mercy that! And there was some random bit about Diego becoming old and wanting to leave the ‘herd’. This was never explored. So why bring it up? It’s not like the children will really understand the deeper and more complicated emotions involved there. All they want is some physical comedy – things falling on peoples’ heads, people falling on things (and other people), loud noises, crashes, blasts, funny sounds etc. And to be true to the makers, this movie did fulfil all these criteria.

After all, they did put in a lot of dinosaurs, complete with screeching noises, roars, big claws and pointy teeth. Of course the dino babies were totally cute but that’s not the point here. The point here actually is (and this was brought to my notice by my sister since I haven’t read Journey to the Centre of the Earth) that the whole idea of having the dinos living in a parallel world of their own, underneath all the ice and mammoths and other creatures is not original, not to speak of absurd. And definitely not paleontologically or historically accurate. I know it’s an animated movie and all that. But that’s no excuse for confusing our young ones is it?

But even without that, the movie cannot be classified as a children’s movie. Being an animated film doesn’t automatically mean it’s for children. A lot of the themes in the movie involve adult situations (starting a family, giving birth, ‘it’s a boy – no that’s just her tail’ kind of jokes, beyond, one hopes, of children, Scrat falling for the wily tricks of a female, Scrat and the female batting their eyes at each other [after beating each other] etc).

I guess the only saving grace of the movie was Sid. He was the only character who remained true to the original spirit, complete with his goofiness, sensitivity, one liners, clumsiness, talking to self, calling for help, being flung from tree to tree (or skiing down the snow) and of course the sleeping over a rock, scratching his butt and playing caregiver.

So what with the dinos and (soon to be parents) mammoths, I was glad Sid was there to remind us of why we loved the ice age so much.