This Christmas special would be one of the many unecessary Ice Age sequels taking place inbetween the third and fourth films as Peaches is a pre-teen in it. Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of the Ice Age films & the franchise really feels like it's overstayed it's welcome after over a decade & unfortunately, it doesn't look like it's going away any time soon since a fifth film has been announced by Blue Sky! With the recurring actors Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, Queen Latifah, Sean William Scott & Josh Peck returning, is this special as unecessary & mediocre as all the sequels (or anything by Blue Sky for all that matter), or will this surprise me as much as Scrat's hilariously crazy antics? Let's find out!
Story: When it comes to the story, it's the generic comedy-adventure plot as Sid, Peaches, Crash & Eddie plan to go to the North Pole to get Sid off the Naughty List (which Manny actually made up on the spot after Sid destroyed his heirloom Christmas rock which comes back later since Manny attributes to its creation) before it turns out it the North Pole & Santa are actually real & everyone is put on the Naughty List after destroying most of it & they have to fix their mistake by saving Christmas (which they do of course). Like I mentioned, the story is pretty generic & it doesn't really add in any twists to make it seem original besides the fact it's set during the ice age & that it's being done by cartoon animals! Scrat's subplot involving him still wanting to get his beloved acorns is of course hilarious thanks to the slapstick, but the problem I have is that we hardly see any of it, which is weird since Scrat is normally the scene stealer in the Ice Age franchise! And the fact that there's hardly any heart put into it just makes me feel like I wasted my time watching this! I know I may be bashing this, but honestly, the writing is just generic & mediocre when getting down to it!
Animation: Although all of Blue Sky's movies & specials have very mediocre stories & characters, at least their great animation can make up for it & this is no exception! The character designs keep the same look being cartoony, but I don't think it works on Santa since he's a human (I know, the first movie also had humans, but they were neanderthals, not homosapiens like Santa!) Anyway, I will give them credit that their versions of Christmas related things like Christmas trees (which Sid apparently invented), snowmen & decorations. Even the North Pole looks really nice & the backgrounds like the aurora borealis admittedly look beautiful! As for the character animation, it is very well done on the fast paced scenes with Scrat, especially since he does things like ice skating & skiing (kinda in Sid's case), but since there isn't any action scenes besides a musical number at the end, it doesn't have much to offer on the other characters. As for the texturing, I don't think it looks as defined on the snow, fur or skin compared to the films, but it still looks good nonetheless! Overall, the animation is definitely the biggest asset in this (well, in anything Blue Sky related) & is very nice to look at!
Characters: When it comes to the main/recurring characters, this is around the time they turned into a group of generics! Manny is now the worrying father/cynical/straight man type of character towards his group until he realizes that Ssnta does in fact exist, Ellie has now turned into the generic loving wife & mother & is pretty much useless (yeah, this is around the time she lost her fun personality! At least in the third film she had something to do being pregnant!) Sid is the same screw-up (AGAIN!) that is pretty much a walking disaster, Diego is the same snarky sabre toothed tiger & Crash & Eddie are the same comedic relief possums. None of them are developed from the past films nor do we learn anything new about them! Well, at least all the voice actors return & do a good job with what little material that they're given! As for Peaches, she is now the generic streetwise & sassy kid character with little to no personality & reminded me too much of a Young Simba in The Lion King. As for Prancer (voiced by TJ Miller), he honestly got on my nerves thanks to his over the top & narcisistic nature & isn't developed either. Oh yeah, and Santa in this is more over the top than expected in this, but his kind heartedness we'd expect from a Santa character doesn't come into play here! In fact, the only character I really enjoyed in this was Scrat despite his very limited screen time this time round & I honestly found his antics to get his acorns more engaging than the rest of the special!
Overall, Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas is just about as mediocre as the other Ice Age sequels with a generic story & characters, but at least the animation is still pretty good! I can only really recommend this to die hard fans of the Ice Age franchise because, really, this definitely is something made more for them! For the rest, it highly depends on your thoughts on Ice Age on whether you'll like this or not! Just goes to show I still need to wait for something not mediocre (as in good) from Blue Sky...who knows! Maybe 2016 Peanuts film will surprise me!
Story: 4/10
Animation: 8/10
Characters: 4/10
Overall: 5/10
This Christmas special would be one of the many unecessary Ice Age sequels taking place inbetween the third and fourth films as Peaches is a pre-teen in it. Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of the Ice Age films & the franchise really feels like it's overstayed it's welcome after over a decade & unfortunately, it doesn't look like it's going away any time soon since a fifth film has been announced by Blue Sky! With the recurring actors Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, Queen Latifah, Sean William Scott & Josh Peck returning, is this special as unecessary & mediocre as all the sequels (or anything by Blue Sky for all that matter), or will this surprise me as much as Scrat's hilariously crazy antics? Let's find out!
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar