Suffice to say that I did not enter the cinema expecting too much. I have an orange contract, I was in town with my girlfriend, and so as usually naturally progresses on a wednesday, we went to see the film for £5 for the both of us. There were other options, but removing the films we'd seen from that list, it did not look too clever and therefore we decided to mingle with the kiddiewinks (in a non sexually abusive fashion, I hasten to add) and feast our eyes on the mediocre-ly entertaining film that is, Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.
Now my natural history isn't the sharpest, but I struggled to understand what any creatures from the Jurassic or Cretaceous periods respectively would be found doing in a mammallian ice age, but I put these particular feelings aside as I slipped on the 3d glasses and settled down.
All in all, the film is OK. Nothing awful, nothing even along the lines of threatening to be a quality film, it's just something that you'd do if you had a fiver and 90 minutes to spare. Which brings me conveniently onto my next point - its length. I think this may be quite possibly the best length for a film. Ever. Anything more than this and you'd start to think "God this really is a bit shit isn't it?" and anything less and you'd probably think "God that really was shit wasn't it?" but at an hour and a half, it just seems to work, explicably.
On to the main meat of the film. The 'humour' in it was much better than I was expecting, much more prime time evening comedy than your bog standard CBBC stuff, and there was plenty of stuff there that only adults/extremely intelligent baby would understand and indeed appreciate. This film, compared to its predecessors relies much less upon visual aspects for its humour, and more on wordplay and intrigue, which sat well with me, seeing as I considerably increasing the average age in the cinema up at least a couple of years.
As for the plot, it was the standard 'A' gets into quite a predicament, 'B' and 'C' go and help 'A', 'Z' happens to them and everything ends up pretty much where it started. In fact, I'm struggling to think of a single thing that changes from beginning to end. Hmm...err....oh, there was 'X'. Large segments of the plot were increasingly incoherent, as is usually the case with films like these, and the characters are true to form in the sense that they make huge decisions and do outrageously dangerous things for no apparent reason, but I quickly forgave this as some of the 3d effects were superb. The film also sees a happy ending to its famous sub-plot, though it is ultimately too brief and as the film finishes, so does the elated feeling of warmth inside as things go back to normal. Ring any bells?
This third installment of the Ice Age franchise also sees a whole host of new characters, the most high profile of the lot being voiced by Britain's very own Simon Pegg, and what a brilliant job he does. This is an important point though - the quality of the 'acting' is really what keeps this film alive, and adds a new dimension to each well thought-out character.
So overall, the film is entertaining enough to be looked at once, though I daresay there'd be something better to see at the cinema unless you really have rinsed it dry. Any children under 8 would love the film, as their critical faculties would not have developed the "boring arsehole" mode yet, and any adults tagging along with them should be pleasantly surprised, I know I was. All in all, it's a perfect Orange Wednesdays film. You didn't want to see it, but you're not really that sad that you did.
I'll give it 5/10
And thus concludes my impersonation of a film review.
Now my natural history isn't the sharpest, but I struggled to understand what any creatures from the Jurassic or Cretaceous periods respectively would be found doing in a mammallian ice age, but I put these particular feelings aside as I slipped on the 3d glasses and settled down.
All in all, the film is OK. Nothing awful, nothing even along the lines of threatening to be a quality film, it's just something that you'd do if you had a fiver and 90 minutes to spare. Which brings me conveniently onto my next point - its length. I think this may be quite possibly the best length for a film. Ever. Anything more than this and you'd start to think "God this really is a bit shit isn't it?" and anything less and you'd probably think "God that really was shit wasn't it?" but at an hour and a half, it just seems to work, explicably.
On to the main meat of the film. The 'humour' in it was much better than I was expecting, much more prime time evening comedy than your bog standard CBBC stuff, and there was plenty of stuff there that only adults/extremely intelligent baby would understand and indeed appreciate. This film, compared to its predecessors relies much less upon visual aspects for its humour, and more on wordplay and intrigue, which sat well with me, seeing as I considerably increasing the average age in the cinema up at least a couple of years.
As for the plot, it was the standard 'A' gets into quite a predicament, 'B' and 'C' go and help 'A', 'Z' happens to them and everything ends up pretty much where it started. In fact, I'm struggling to think of a single thing that changes from beginning to end. Hmm...err....oh, there was 'X'. Large segments of the plot were increasingly incoherent, as is usually the case with films like these, and the characters are true to form in the sense that they make huge decisions and do outrageously dangerous things for no apparent reason, but I quickly forgave this as some of the 3d effects were superb. The film also sees a happy ending to its famous sub-plot, though it is ultimately too brief and as the film finishes, so does the elated feeling of warmth inside as things go back to normal. Ring any bells?
This third installment of the Ice Age franchise also sees a whole host of new characters, the most high profile of the lot being voiced by Britain's very own Simon Pegg, and what a brilliant job he does. This is an important point though - the quality of the 'acting' is really what keeps this film alive, and adds a new dimension to each well thought-out character.
So overall, the film is entertaining enough to be looked at once, though I daresay there'd be something better to see at the cinema unless you really have rinsed it dry. Any children under 8 would love the film, as their critical faculties would not have developed the "boring arsehole" mode yet, and any adults tagging along with them should be pleasantly surprised, I know I was. All in all, it's a perfect Orange Wednesdays film. You didn't want to see it, but you're not really that sad that you did.
I'll give it 5/10
And thus concludes my impersonation of a film review.
