Today’s Prayer Focus

MOVIE REVIEW

Ice Age

a.k.a. “L'âge de glace,” “A Era do Gelo,” “L'era glaciale,” “La era de hielo,” “La era del hielo,” See all »

MPA Rating: PG-Rating (MPA)

for mild peril.

Reviewed by: Robin Tan
CONTRIBUTOR

Moral Rating:	Better than Average
Moviemaking Quality:
Primary Audience:	Kids Family
Genre:	Animation Action Adventure Comedy Kids Family
Length:	1 hr. 21 min.
Year of Release:	2002
USA Release:	March 15, 2002 (wide)

Relevant Issues

INCREDIBLE SLOTH—What can a sloth teach me about life? Answer

Answers about the Ice Age
From Christian Answers theam member Answers In Genesis

Top choice for accurate, in-depth information on Creation/Evolution. The SuperLibrary is provided by a top team of experts from various respected creationist organizations who answer your questions on a wide variety of topics. Multilingual.

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Featuring	Jack Black, Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Alan Tudyk, Denis Leary, Cedric the Entertainer, Goran Visnjic, Stephen Root, Diedrich Bader, Lorri Bagley, Jane Krakowski, Peter Ackerman, P.J. Benjamin, Josh Hamilton, Chris Wedge, Denny Dillon, Mitzi McCall, Tara Strong
Director	Chris Wedge, Carlos Saldanha
Producer	Blue Sky Studios, Twentieth Century Fox Animation, John C. Donkin, Lori Forte, Christopher Meledandri
Distributor	20th Century Studios, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Studios, a division of The Walt Disney Company

“Sub-zero heroes”

Ever since “Toy Story,” computer animated films have been released by many companies and genres. Adding to the 3D collection of “A Bug’s Life,” “Final Fantasy,” “Shrek,” and “Monsters, Inc.” is “Ice Age”. Featuring the voices of Ray Romano (“Everybody Loves Raymond”), John Leguizamo (“Collateral Damage”) and Denis Leary (“The Job”), “Ice Age” is about three animals, Manfred the mammoth, Sid the Sloth, and Diego the Sabertooth tiger, teaming up to return a lost human baby to the family. However, each of them have an agenda of their own for doing so.

As a movie, I found it quite engaging and funny, with all three characters’ displaying different attitudes and strengths. Each of them ends up learning the true meaning of friendship and loyalty despite all the tragedies and annoyances of their trip. The comic relief provided by Sid the sloth (though not original) manages to be funny and witty, providing more than a few laughs along the way. Adding to the comedy is Scrat, a squirrel who meets up with the party for a short while, but actually has a story of his own with his acorns and nuts.

On the bad side, I found the animation not very well done, compared to the likes of the latest flicks. The script was not 5 star material, either. “Ice Age” feels a bit short too at under 90 minutes. The storyline is generally uninspiring and extremely predictable.

There were only two objectionable things I found in this movie. The whole plot is based heavily on evolutionary theory with the obvious funny looking animals—almost like “unevolved” versions of our present-day animals. But Creationists need not worry about any heavy indoctrination. Secondly, the scene where Sid mud-bathes together with two female sloths may be unsuitable for certain children. But, other than that, this movie provides good clean humor and dialog. I highly recommend this movie for teenagers and anyone who loved movies like “Toy Story” and “Monsters, Inc.”

Films in this series:

Ice Age (2002)
Ice Age 2: The Meltdown (2006)
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009)
Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012)

See list of Relevant Issues—questions-and-answers.

Positive—My wife and I are conservative Christians—We won’t even let our 5-year old watch Rugrats because of the attitude they demonstrate—So as usual we were very cautious about letting our 5-year old daughter see Ice Age. Ratings nowdays are pretty inaccurate, inconsistent and deceptive. We found Ice Age to be completely inoffensive, totally enjoyable, hysterically funny, and frankly, we will get the DVD when it comes out. Our daughter loved it too. The humor is intelligent, the characters are well developed, and the artwork is slick and stylized. We loved it. We have read reviews that there are subtle references to same-sex marriage and adoption, that two rhinocerous characters are gay, and other offensive quips in this film. Nonsense. Frankly, we didn’t see them—We suspect that if such messages are in fact in this movie, they are encoded in language that only those living that lifestyle would understand. The only parts that may distress small children are animal violence. You will see far, far worse on any Saturday morning cartoon show. Don’t miss this movie. Bring the kids.
My Ratings: [Good / 5]

Craig Schmoller, age 48

Positive—I took my 9 year old son to this movie. We loved it. We did not notice anything offensive, the strongest language being “shut up.” The message of redemption was great, and family values were stressed throughout the movie.
My Ratings: [Good / 5]

Steve McKeown, age 37

Positive—I found this movie to be a wonderful family movie. My husband and I took our 13 year old nephew along with a 15 year old girl from our church. There was a touch of bathroom joking but nothing vulgur. There was no cussing at all! We all had a good laugh and left the moving without feeling disappointed. It’s a movie I would feel safe bringing any child to. Go see it and enjoy a nice night out with the kids. I will most likely buy this for my home.
My Ratings: [Better than Average / 4]

Angela Janice, age 22

Positive—My husband and I saw the first showing on opening day of Ice Age. We don’t remember seeing a better animated movie! This one had us laughing, or at least snickering, throughout the whole film. Top notch characters and excellent lines bring this movie to life. I highly recommend it for all ages. The only thing I saw that might be objectionable to some people is the reference of evolution. It’s definitely overlookable though, as this movie really pokes fun at the subject. Light-hearted and entertaining, this movie is sure to be a classic all its own!
My Ratings: [Good / 5]

Amy and André, ages 30/31

Positive—I saw this with my wife, and children ages 9, 8, 5. Everyone LOVED it. I was a little apprehensive, thinking there might be some “toilet” style humor (similar to Shrek) or rude commentary. I was very pleased, the movie overall was CLEAN, the only even “slightly” offensive dialogue was “shut up” on one occasion, which is something that just stands out because we so carefully train our own children never to speak in that tone. There was one instance of a character stepping in “poop,” but it was played off as best as one could hope for, but it wouldn’t have hurt to leave it out! There was a brief image reference to something that may be considered evolution, but some kids present with me saw it as “stages” of animals… no dialogue accompanied this “selling” evolution. Only some references to “ages” and years of the Earth’s existence would even give a clue to the underlying beliefs of the writers/producers, but absolutely nothing presented in an offensive way…
My Ratings: [Better than Average / 4½]

Ken Hekking, age 36

Positive—I went into this film expecting something like Shrek and Monsters Inc. What I didn’t expect was that this movie that nearly plaigerized both. If you didn’t like one of these movies, you won’t like this one. But don’t let that dissuade you from going. This movie can stand on its own. There are only a few objectionable elements to this film, and I’d bet that every single one of them will go over children’s heads. For one there is the subject of evolution, which is brought up several times in the movie. Another thing was that there may have been implied homosexuality of the two Rhino’s, however there is nothing explicit one way or the other. I would recommend this movie to all parents and children as long as parents are willing to discuss any difficult subject matter with their children.
My Ratings: [Better than Average / 4]

Adam, age 19

Neutral—…I like it and kids like too. It’s funny, sad and they where a team and working as a team. Well, the tiger want the kid at first but when he get saved by the big guy. The tiger helped the child back to the humans.
My Ratings: [Average / 4]

Thomas Dickensheets, age 40

Neutral—This movie was quite good, and showed a lot of good, normal, human feelings and behaviour—although mostly shown by animals. Although it was a cute story and some touching moments, it had no revolutionary computer effects or visual effects at all. Shrek, Antz, A Bug’s Life and Toy Story have already shown us the potential of computer generated animation. It is worth to see, but just as another entertaining movie you probably will forget very quickly.
My Ratings: [Good / 3]

Jonas, age 20

Positive—…not as impressive a view as “Shrek” or Monsters, Inc.… contains very little in what I refer to as “blatant” offenses. Minor references to the animals “finding” a mate, but very light hearted and only in reference to the animals, not likely to affect the younger ones in any way. One important note is that the human portrayal is one of a loving family unit. Language is fine. No profanities. …The topic of evolution is assumed and implied a couple of times but not in a scientific or convincing way but rather comical. Creationists need not fear any influence here. The story line here is simple but effective in showing that working together is possible and preferable even though there are a lot of differences in all of us. I found it very easy to parallel the theme of doing the right thing to my three kids on the way home from this movie. A great family movie…
My Ratings: [Better than Average / 4]

Peter Keefe, age 35

While [the reviewer] objected to the mud-pit scene with the female sloths (rightly so) he completely missed the pair of homosexual rhinos in the same setting. As a believer, I found their inclusion in the film as the single most-objectionable element.

Gordon Murray

Comments from young people

Positive—I thought it was a really cute movie. It definitely had evolutionary thoughts (considering it was taking place in the Ice Age), but several times it seemed to be a rather humorous view of evolution, almost as if it were making fun. At any rate it was very entertaining. I thought it was excellent.
My Ratings: [Average / 4]

Sally, age 17

Movie Critics

…will entertain kids from 10 on up. Sports enthusiasts will also enjoy laughable scenes of skiing, snowboarding and football with dodo birds. But younger audiences may find some scenes disturbing…

Preview Family Movie and TV Review

…DISCUSSION TOPICS—Extinction, evolution, being alone, ice ages, global warming, death of loved ones, loyalty, mating for life, obsession…

Kids-in-Mind

…A few instances of minor crude humor are present, as are some minor sexually related comments that will go over most kids’ heads…

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