CHICAGO – Excelsior! Comic book legend Stan Lee’s famous exclamation puts a fine point on the third and final play of Mark Pracht’s FOUR COLOR TRILOGY, “The House of Ideas,” presented by and staged at City Lit Theater in Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood. For tickets/details, click HOUSE OF IDEAS.
Film Review: ‘Ice Age: Continental Drift’ Sucks Remaining Life From Franchise
CHICAGO – The families who get suckered into the truly horrendous “Ice Age: Continental Drift” should be angry. Not only does it fail when compared to the best animation of the year (“Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted,” “The Pirates! A Band of Misfits,” “The Secret World of Arrietty,” “Brave”) but it’s less entertaining than most children’s television. The audience with which I saw the film was notably restless as the writers of this stale franchise hit the same tired beats over and over again and the bored voice talent can practically be heard endorsing their checks as they lackadaisically read their lines. The new cast members try to bring a little life to this tired material but they can’t save a franchise frozen out of all creative thought.
Rating: 1.0/5.0 |
The best line in “Ice Age 4” comes courtesy of Sid the Sloth (John Leguizamo) when he offhandedly quips about how this makeshift family’s last adventure involved fighting dinosaurs, which he notes didn’t make a lot of sense but was fun. Once again, the team behind this franchise have come up with a bizarre plotline that doesn’t make a lot of sense but they’ve forgotten the fun. The alleged uniting theme of this installment in the billion dollar franchise is “family,” how this bizarre group of unlikely friends has become closer over the years. It’s as loose a theme as a family film has had in years since little of the plot has much to do with it. It’s more characters just yelling “FAMILY!” every once in awhile to try to unite the plotlines.
Read Brian Tallerico’s full review of “Ice Age: Continental Drift” in our reviews section. |
The bulk of “Ice Age: Continental Drift” features Sid, Diego the Tiger (Denis Leary), Manny the Mammoth (Ray Romano), and Sid’s Granny (Wanda Sykes) navigating the open waters on a floating chunk of ice after the planets start to shift. They’ve been separated from Manny’s family, including partner Ellie (Queen Latifah), the manic Crash (Seann William Scott) & Eddie (Josh Peck), Manny’s daughter Peaches (Keke Palmer), Peaches’ peers Ethan (Drake) & Steffie (Nicki Minaj), and Peaches’ molehog friend Louis (Josh Gad) — who are all trying to avoid sliding chunks of land and get back to Manny while Peaches also deals with typical issues of being a teenager.
Ice Age: Continental Drift
Photo credit: Fox Pictures