Writer: Lai Swee Wei

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Watch this if you liked: “Ice Age,” “Ice Age: The Meltdown”

In the first instalment, we saw our sub-zero heroes protect a lost human infant, then nail-bitingly watched them escape from the massive flood caused by the melted iceberg in "The Meltdown" and now they've discovered a whole new underground world in "Dawn Of The Dinosaurs." The third instalment of "Ice Age" serves up as a refreshing animation featuring many new exciting characters: Scratte, a female sabre-tooth squirrel, Buck, a one-eyed dino-hunting weasel and a wide variety of giant dinosaurs (this time, Manny and Ellie aren't the only large mammals we see). It was a wise move from the award winning creators as they managed to keep the film fresh and exciting, whilst keeping the charm of the original stars: Manny the woolly mammoth, Sid the sloth, Diego the sabre-toothed tiger and Scrat the hapless squirrel/rat.

As the story goes, Manny and Ellie are having a baby together and this causes Sid to feel left out and want to have a family of his own, while Diego believes that he has turned domesticated. While all eyes are on Sid, he discovers three dinosaur eggs in an underground ice cave and cares for them as his own kids, decorating their shells with happy faces. Chaos then breaks loose when mom dinosaur comes in search for her children and ends up taking her hatched kids away as well as Sid. Thus, Manny, Ellie, Diego and Ellie's 'brothers' Crash and Eddie venture into an underground world of dinosaurs to rescue Sid.

The new world that we see here in "Ice Age" comes across as a highly upgraded version of the classic 2-D cartoon "The Land Before Time." It is rich with vibrant colours and beautifully detailed scenic landscapes of waterfalls and the prehistoric terrain. From here, the insane character Buck is introduced and is a joy to watch because of his wacky antics of living alone for so long.

"Ice Age 3" has a couple of laugh-out-loud scenes and maintains its children-friendly jokes and sarcastic humour. The scenes involving Scrat and Scratte are irresistibly adorable as the creators played around with exaggerated expressions and comical actions. Watching them chase after the elusive acorn is a good escape from the search-and-rescue mission that our heroes are going through. Lastly, the soundtrack tunes and lyrics are witty, funny, melodic and influenced from the 1970's, which paired up well with the story. Overall, a good movie for the whole family.

Cinema Online, 26 June 2009