Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is the third film in the Ice Age trilogy and is making its way to Blu-ray this month. While I enjoyed the first film, Ice Age a lot, I found the second installment, Ice Age: The Meltdown, to be a bit of a let down although is sure did well at the box office. Will the third installment continue the downward slid or match the level of the first?
Film
As was the case with the first two films, Dawn of the Dinosaurs is a production of Blue Sky Studios and is distributed by the folks at 20th Century Fox. The film shared the same excellent computer animation as the first two films. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, reunites us with the main characters from the first two films, Manny the Mammoth (voiced by Ray Romano), Sid the Sloth (voiced by John Leguizamo) and Diego the saber tooth tiger (voiced by Dennis Leary).
At the outset of the film, Manny’s love interest, Ellie (voiced by Quenn Latifa) is pregnant with their baby and Manny is busy preparing a new play area for his child. Diego is unable to catch a gazelle (voiced by Bill Herder) and decides he needs to leave the herd to recoup his mojo as a tiger. Sid, on the other hand, falls through the ice into a cave and discovers three large eggs which he takes back to the herd. Much to his surprise, they hatch overnight into three small T-Rexs which begin to reck havoc with the rest of the herd.
Things go from bad to worse when their mother, a full grown and angry T-Rex arrives to find her babies and take them home. In the process, she grabs Sid and takes him with her as well. In order to save their friend Sid, Manny, Ellie, Diego and the two Opossums Crash and Eddie (voiced by Seann William Scott and Josh Beck), decide to enter the subterranean world of the dinosaurs to rescue Sid. It is in the land of the Dinosaurs that they meet a weasel named Buck (voiced by Simon Pegg), who is as crazy yet as brave as they come, who they enlist to help them navigate this strange new and dangerous world so they can find and rescue Sid.
The word that came immediately to mind as I thought about the film is pleasant. It is without a doubt a pleasant family film. The problem for me is that we have seen this all before in the first film and repeated again in the second. Although the film is set is a totally different environment, it still has the look and feel of the first two. The best new addition to the film is the swashbuckling and fearless Buck wonderfully voiced by Simon Pegg, who for me, simply ran away with the film.
The film also features the adventures of the saber tooth Squirrel, Scrat, who continues in his quest to capture the ever illusive acorn, finding a love interest in the process. I have no doubt that you will enjoy this film if you enjoyed the first two. It is just that I would have preferred a newer and fresher take on the characters and story line than that presented here. Recommended as a rental only.
Video
As is now expected with computer animated films on Blu-ray, this encode appears to be flawless as compared with the theatrical presentation. The film features a varied if a bit subdued color palette. The film is as clean as a whistle with no film grain of any kind and an incredible level of detail. If I have one quibble with the overall look of the film, it is the black level, which is not as deep and inky as a film such as Monsters vs. Aliens. As a result of the more subdued blacks, the film has less of a vibrancy and three dimensionality than a film such as Monsters which really leaps off the screen. However, that is really a purely aesthetic choice on the part of the filmmakers and is not the result of the encoding process.
This film looks just as it did in the theater and in fact, appears to be a perfect reproduction of the film. As such, even though I would have preferred deeper blacks and slightly more vibrant colors than those presented here, this is a perfect reproduction of the film for the home theater market and as such, is fully worthy of a five star rating.
Audio
The lossless audio track here sounds excellent with a smooth and open sound that sounds great even at reference volume levels. The audio track is totally devoid of any harshness or shrillness and is a joy to experience with the volume levels cracked way up. The dialogue track in particular is well recorded and well placed in the mix. For the most part, there is excellent use made of the surround speakers which are used a bit less aggressively in the beginning of the film than I would have liked but really kick into high gear as the film reaches its climax.
The only real fault I have with the sound is in the level of dynamics and bass response. The mix lacked the level of dynamics that one would associate with an action film. The lack of dynamics is notably experienced in the scenes with the T-Rex which frankly, did not rattle the room as much as I had hoped, even at high volume levels. The thundering steps of the T-Rex, were a bit less dramatic than I had expected, lacking that room rattling sound. Other than this caveat, this is a fine sounding film and will not doubt, please fans of the film.
Special Features
Ice Age: The Dawn of the Dinosaurs is chock full of extras. This is a three disc set and includes a DVD version of the film and a digital copy along with the Blu-ray edition of the film and as such, is a great film to take on the road with you to keep the kids occupied. The release is also BD-Live enabled.
The disc features a director’s commentary, an Ice Age Storybook Masker, a feaaturette Evolution Expedition which takes a look at the actual animals that form the basis of the film with bones and fossils at the La Brea Tarpits Museaum near Los Angeles as well as their modern cousins at the Santa Barbara zoo. Also included as a featurette Buck: From Easel to Weasel which traces the development of the character as well a featurette on the making of the film entitled Unearthing the Lost World.
The extras also include some unfinished deleted scenes and the Walk the Dinosaur music video as well as Fox Movie Channel featurettes Making a Scene for this as well as the Ice Age: The Meltdown film, as well as In Character shorts with John Leguizamo, Ray Romano and Queen Latiffa. Also included is the Scrat Pack, with shorts featuring Scrat as well as a look behind the making of the character and several Scrat featuettes.
For the most part, the extras are presented in HD with a few in widescreen standard definition and are well worth a look, with my two favorites being Evolution Expedition and From Easel to Weasel.
Final Thoughts
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is a pleasant film that the whole family can enjoy. Recommended as a rental only.
