Manny, Sid, and Diego discover that the ice age is coming to an end, and join everybody for a journey to higher ground. On the trip, they discover that Manny, in fact, is not the last of the woolly mammoths. Ice Age: The Meltdown is the perfect example of how to make a great 2nd film especially since it brings new faces and new villains to the table. For example i love Ellie's backstory and her character as a whole she's sweet and funny also i love those 2 little fellas Crash and Eddie and the new villains the Vulture and the 2 sea creatures were great and quite dangerous to begin with. The film is heavily invested upon friendship and family as well which is a good message for the kids and the overall animation is terrific. In the end Ice Age 2 is a fun, light hearted and above all fun sequel that expands the universe that the first film made and once again Scrat steals the show especially the Karate moments were entertaining as hell. (A+)

This film is set in the end of the Ice Age and is a sequel to "Ice Age". In this film, the animals will have to survive and head out of the glacier, which is melting quickly. Directed by Carlos Saldanha, has voice actors like Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Queen Latifah and Denis Leary.This film is not recommended for people who did not like much of the original film, it is basically more of the same, with the aggravating circumstance of the story is not so interesting, although it is easier to understand for young children. The central characters are the same who carried out the original film, and the criticism did still apply: Diego and Manfred are the most mature and interesting, while Sid continues spoiling the film with uninteresting jokes and stupid scenes. Scrat is still funny, but it cannot hold the film alone (well, he didn't even hold his nut for long...). To this set now comes a female mammoth Ellie, and a couple of pretty funny possums, capable of good moments of humor.The work of animators is regular and fulfills its role. The voice actors did a good job, particularly Queen Latifah, that gave Ellie a very sonorous voice, feminine and pleasant to hear. The soundtrack does not stand out in the film.

'Ice Age: The Meltdown' is another achieving success for Blue Sky Studios and director of the series Carlos Saldanha.When they discover the ice age is coming to a close, Manny (voiced by Ray Romano), Sid (voiced by John Leguizamo) and Diego (voiced by Dennis Leary) join the remaining animals and species as they journey to higher land. On their journey they meet other animals who become key characters in the future such as Ellie the enormous possum/mammoth (voiced by Queen Latifah).Though the story follows similar ground the writers and directors behind 'The Meltdown' have accumulated many laughs throughout so you shouldn't be bothered to much. Also, the introduction of the new 'main' characters such as Ellie and her two possums freshen up matters in case people found the trio from the first film a little dull and repetitive. Personally, I didn't however I can have no complaints with the new characters as they blend well with the more experienced ones and the chemistry between them is fabulous. Scrat the squirrel/rat returns and is another thing which is easily commendable; it lifts the pressure off the now quartet with its own speechless but quirky performances throughout in its quest to gather the nut it craves!'The Meltdown' is superior to its predecessor on many levels however, it lacks the originality of the original as well as its powerful emotional strength.

A thaw is the chief threat to the lead characters in Ice Age: The Meltdown, the unfunny sequel to an original film from four years earlier which transported furry, anthropomorphic animated creatures of a bygone century back to a time when ice and snow blanketed the world and the issue of evolution seemingly didn't exist. Where there is a literal thaw within that of the film, there is a parallel one of exterior nature seeing the whole idea of these somewhat likable little characters and their adventures coming to wear rather thin – the film striking us as an exercise in looking to feed off recent glories by churning out sequels and sit on a soap box in the process. The error of the film's ways is in its removing of everything that made 2002's Ice Age fun; primarily, its character dynamics and its hybridising of an era set thousands and thousands of years ago with the modern-day. Here and now, there is very little wit to "Meltdown"; a film about characters making this huge trek across snowy wildernesses as this impending item of doom and destruction threatens them, and yet rarely feeling like anybody is actually going anywhere at all. Toss in a really meekly handled global warming message, designed to attune the kids to such an issue, but coming off as heavy handled; some annoying supporting characters and the fact that all of Ice Age's own ingenuity and charm has been stripped away from this project, and you have a fairly lacklustre computer animation which goes on for too long without engaging.The film begins with its characters in a pleasant enough place: a neat little Utopia built upon the icy plains of whatever stretch of land this is further-still tucked away in a makeshift corner which sports all you need to generally be able to relax in life. Located therein is Sid the sloth, voiced again by that of John Leguizamo whom, as it was in the first, provides Sid with the lispy and goofy verbal tones required to have us easily take to him. He runs what can only be described as a summer camp; a place for the tots of this world to come and play and swim and listen to stories told by that of the supervisors. Also there are Diego (Leary) and Manfred (Romano); Diego being the sabre-tooth tiger whose plight in the first it was which made him change from being the cold-hearted predator killer and into, well, someone whom still eats meat, we assume, but never his good friends the sloth or the mammoth. Manfred is that mammoth, and after some brief beginnings which feign as if to set up a different movie entirely more broadly linked to Sid's inability to communicate with the opposite sex; failure to establish order as the governing force of his workplace and the still-lacklustre levels of respect he has from his peers, we veer off and away down a route encompassing Manfred and his problems.But that comes a little later. First, there is a vulture and the ultimatum he offers to those located within this little zone. Principally, they all have three days to pack up and ship out, for that large cliff face-come-glacier behind them acting as a shield to anything and everything beyond it is beginning to melt out of a collective warming. The vulture warns them because he doesn't like wet food; their trek across the planet to find somewhere safer and away from the soon-to-be incoming wave of has-been ice block a journey he and his buddies hope will see them perish. Premise in mind, and a rounded deadline of three days one would assume that crafty vulture has specifically waited to unload unto them, the animals take the plunge and head off; thus kicking into gear one of the more sporadic and less involving animated pieces from recent years.Granted, there is something funny about a descendant from a squirrel named Scrat constantly chasing a nut – the likes of which rely on the physicality of the situation and the character's own flexibility. We are aware he cannot ever obtain the nut and the fact he often falls flat on his face in trying to retrieve it is second to how he goes about doing it. The pleasure one derives, although really ought not, from these skits leaves the rest of the film as unenjoyable as it is; a series of interludes relying on escapes from precarious situations and situational comedic content involving characters voiced by the likes of Queen Latifah (anybody who calls themselves "Queen" Latifah is practically asking to be ignored) to see it home. Examples of the magisterial levels of wit buried within Gerry Swallow and Peter Gaulke's screenplay arrive in the form of a whole pack of vultures doing an Oliver Twist number as well as a routine involving eccentric, pint-sized would-be desert island tribal creatures doing dances and such evoking the Eric Darnell movie from barely a year previously, in Madagascar.The film becomes Manfred's, and an internal/existential crisis through which he journeys to do with whether there is much point to carrying on if he is the sole mammoth left. Of course it turns out he isn't, but for time-limit's sake, it'll take some time to convince this newfound mammoth that they are what Manfred tells them they are – cue some rather risqué, and often out of place, gags about first dates and how far down the line heterosexual relationships need to be before whatever. The first Ice Age was a difficult film to dislike, "The Meltdown" is a very easy film to not take to at all; hollow praise aside that is "does" whatever "job" it needs to in order to quench entertainment driven thirsts of families encompassing that of young children, this first Ice Age sequel is just disappointing.