The Ice Age is coming to an end, and the animals are delighting in the melting paradise that is their new world. Manny, Sid, and Diego quickly learn that the warming climate has one major drawback: a huge glacial dam is about to break, threatening the entire valley. The only chance of survival lies at the other end of the valley. So the three heroes, along with a mammoth named Ellie and her two "brothers" -- possums Crash and Eddie -- embark on a mission across an increasingly dangerous landscape towards their salvation.

If your not really trying, does not truly succeeding constitute failure. Oh, Ice Age the Meltdown knows what it has going for it and it also knows what it doesn't have going for it and it is happy to be a mediocre run of the mill kind of sequel that will bank on its name rather than trying to be new and inventive. This isn't to say this is like your Disney kind of meltdown straight to video sequel don't get me wrong, where Disney on a regular basis takes a dump in a box and slaps their name on something that once was good but the film still was like a poor man's version of the first Ice Age. What’s missing you say, probably a little more story, plot and conflict. The movie has a little of these elements but all in very weak quantities. The story is simpler this time, the slapstick heavier and quite a bit more stupid for that matter because we already know the story and we already know the characters so the movies doesn’t bother to do anymore than pickup where it left off. The plot is the same, escape danger, have some silly stupid fun on the way but this time around leave out the good messages and morals like family is important as well as friendship, who wants kid’s to learn positive morals from a movie anyways. Make the conflict the exact opposite of the first one, now we are escaping the ice age where we running to it in the first movie and wham bam thank you ma’am we have our sequel.

The best part of the first movie and everyone will agree was Scrat the ever loving squirrel who could never manage to hold onto his acorn. Like I said before the producers knew what they had and they knew Scrat was a big part of the first movies success so we are luckily treated with more of Scrat as he is still the running gag the entire movie. The characters were pretty tired and clichéd in the first movie and the sequel does nothing to fix this, the bad guy who turns out to have a soft spot, the hurt but still carrying leader, and the ever annoying sidekick who just won’t shut up. This time though we get to take a turn down the silly, with a six ton mammoth that thinks she’s a possum and her wise cracking brothers who are no good mischief makers. Don’t get me wrong with the exception of Scrat the possums were my favorite part of the movie they always seemed to make me smile and its their addition that made me like the movie when I probably would have hated it otherwise. The original three characters from the first movie were trite to me, they were the same silly characters that seemed to be puppets on a string reciting the same lines as the first movie and without the new additions the movie would have stunk but the whole memory loss I think I am a Possum was stupid and over the top and could have been done away with.

The line between kids movie and kids movie that adults will enjoy is beginning to blur I think. Nobody has perfected it as well as Pixar and funny enough they do it with zero crude humor and very little innuendo. Ice Age the Meltdown may have crossed the line though, I heard several curse words and way too much innuendo that wasn’t very well hidden not to mention the fact they threw out the moral this time. If you make a movie well enough, whether it be live action or animated you can attract both adult audiences as well as kids audiences and its sad that studios like 20th Century Fox and Dreamworks have no idea how to do this without blurring the line between what is acceptable and what isn’t. This is why Pixar is king and will remain king and why movies like Ice Age are fun and enjoyable but clearly lesser versions and small fish in a very big pond.

Grade: C+