Ice Age: The Meltdown
| Ice Age: The Meltdown | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Carlos Saldanha |
| Produced by | Lori Forte Chris Wedge |
| Written by | Peter Gaulke Gerry Swallow |
| Starring | Ray Romano John Leguizamo Denis Leary Queen Latifah Jay Leno Seann William Scott Josh Peck Will Arnett |
| Music by | John Powell |
| Editing by | Harry Hitner |
| Studio | Blue Sky Studios |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
| Release date(s) | March 31, 2006 |
| Running time | 91 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $80 million |
| Gross revenue | $651,899,282[1] |
| Preceded by | Ice Age |
| Followed by | Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs |
Ice Age: The Meltdown, also known as Ice Age 2: The Meltdown or simply as Ice Age 2, is the 2006 sequel to the computer-animated, 2002 Ice Age. It was produced by Blue Sky Studios for 20th Century Fox, and premiered in Belgium on March 1, 2006. It was eventually released in 70 countries, with the last release being in China, on June 9, 2006.[2] It was directed by Carlos Saldanha, co-director of the original Ice Age, and the music is composed by Robots composer, John Powell. The working title was Ice Age 2: The Meltdown, but for the film's final release, the creators decided to remove the number 2, calling it Ice Age: The Meltdown. However, in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Mexico, and Australia, its title is promoted as Ice Age 2: The Meltdown. Also, most of the sponsors of the film had the 2 in their packaging after the name change (they however did edit the 2 out of their TV ads). The Blu-ray Disc and DVD were released in the United States and Canada on November 21, 2006 according to the official web store.[3] They were released in the UK on October 23, 2006. They both include a brand new Scrat short, No Time for Nuts.
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Plot
In the opening scene, Scrat, the saber-toothed squirrel climbs a glacier but accidentally opens a hole in it. The world of ice is slowly melting. The creatures of the Ice Age are all shown enjoying themselves on slides and pools made by the melting ice; among them the three protagonists of the first film: Manny, Sid, and Diego. Sid opens a day camp, where none of the younger creatures take him seriously, nor do Manny and Diego, which leaves Sid seeking a daring deed. Fast Tony, a local con artist is claiming that the earth will flood and that the bark and reeds which he sells are needed to stay alive. Manny dismisses the idea, but is distracted when he sees that Sid will try to high dive from a giant waterfall; as Manny goes with Diego to the top of the waterfall to save Sid from his act of daredevilry, they see that the pleasant weather caused the ice of the valley to melt, and it is kept from destroying the valley only by the glaciers, which have formed a dam. A turkey vulture tells the animals that a giant tree can act as a boat and save them; all soon set out to find it. As the animals begin their journey, Sid sings three songs to tease Manny about Mammoths being "extinct".During the time that the masses of animals escape, a glacier which contains two sea reptiles from the Mesozoic era, Cretaceous and Maelstrom, breaks off.
Diego and Sid encounter two mischievous opossums named Crash and Eddie who drive them nuts. Manny is teased about being the last mammoth alive, but meets Ellie, a female mammoth who believes she is an opossum and the sister of Crash and Eddie. Sid invites her to tag along with the group to escape the flood, and she brings her brothers. After a perilous ordeal with Cretaceous and Maelstrom, Sid finds out that Diego is afraid of water, prompting him to encourage Diego to admit and face his fears - Diego insists "Fear is for prey", so Sid points out that Diego is behaving as if he is water's prey. They discover an area which Ellie recalls as the place where she was adopted. She finally realizes she is a mammoth but distances herself from Manny when he suggests "saving their species". Ellie and Manny ultimately make up when they must co-operate to save the group when the ground cracks under their feet. Sid is kidnapped by a tribe of mini-sloths who believe Sid to be a god. Sid lights a fire for them, and believes that he has finally found respect, but they plan to sacrifice him to a volcano. Sid escapes. The next morning Sid tells the others his experience but none are convinced. They find a field of hot geysers, which separate Manny, Sid, and Diego from Ellie and her brothers.
When the flood comes, Manny saves Ellie from drowning as she is caught in a cave (due to falling rocks), while Diego overcomes his fear of water to save Sid. Cretaceous and Maelstrom arrive, but due to Manny's quick thinking, they are finished off by a rock which falls on them, killing them both. The other animals are at the mercy of the water currents. Meanwhile, Scrat climbs up the glacier and at the top sticks the acorn he has into the ice. This forms a crack in the glacier, which widens into a fissure, diverting the flood and saving the animals. Scrat is then washed away. In the final scene, a herd of mammoths shows up, but Manny and Ellie decide to remain together anyway, taking Sid, Diego, and the opossum brothers along. Sid encounters the mini-sloths again - they believe Sid stopped the flood and invite him to be their leader. Diego, surprised to see the mini-sloths are real, convinces Sid to stay with the others, reluctantly admitting that Sid is a vital part of their 'herd'. The epilogue shows Scrat having a near death experience after falling into the fissure. He enters a heaven full of acorns. Suddenly, he finds himself torn away. He unhappily wakes up, having been resuscitated by Sid.
Cast
- Manfred "Manny" the woolly mammoth is voiced by Ray Romano.
- Sid the giant ground sloth is voiced by John Leguizamo.
- Diego the Smilodon is voiced by Denis Leary.
- Scrat the saber-toothed squirrel is voiced by Chris Wedge.
- Ellie the woolly mammoth is voiced by Queen Latifah
- Crash and Eddie the opossums are voiced by Seann William Scott and Josh Peck, respectively.
- Lone Gunslinger Vulture is voiced by Will Arnett
- Fast Tony the giant armadillo is voiced by Jay Leno.
- Stu the glyptodon is voiced by Tom Fahn.
- James the aardvark is voiced by Alex Sullivan.
- Cholly the Chalicothere is voiced by Alan Tudyk.
Promotions
- As an additional marketing ploy a special "anti-cell" spot was created with Sid complaining to the audience about a ringing cellular phone. The same was done for Brother Bear, I, Robot, Kung Fu Panda, and Robots.
- On Family Guy's episode "Sibling Rivalry", Scrat is shown trying to take three nuts out of the side of a glacier; Peter shows up and tries to stop him, admonishing the squirrel for stealing, which drives Scrat to subsequently attack Peter. Apart from Peter, the scene was rendered in 3D (Family Guy is normally drawn in 2D), and Scrat was voiced by Chris Wedge who voices him in the films. The episode originally aired the week before the film opened. Fox aired promotions for the film throughout the evening.
- During the same evening of Scrat's Family Guy cameo, Sid was hosting the entire FOX line-up, showing up in intermittent times between commercials.
- Re-edited scenes of Ice Age: The Meltdown were shown in Airhead candy commercials on several kids' channels and programs, such as the Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, ABC Kids on ABC, and more. It shows, in part, that after Scrat defeats a school of piranha, he proudly displays an Airhead packet (replaced by an acorn in the actual film), when suddenly an eagle comes over and swipes it from him.
- One of the posters for the film was a parody of an iPod advertisement, with "iAge" replacing "iPod" and an acorn replacing an iPod.
Reception
Critical reception
Ice Age: The Meltdown received mixed to average reviews, with Rotten Tomatoes giving the film a "rotten" rating, with 56% of reviews positive. Its Metacritic score is 58 [1], placing it at the high end of the site's "mixed or average reviews" category. Roger Ebert gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four.[4]
Box office
The film exceeded expectations by opening with an $68,033,544 in its first weekend. This was the second biggest opening for a non-summer, non-holiday release, after the $83,848,082 of the The Passion of the Christ. But the record for highest grossing weekend for March only lasted a year, due to the $70,885,301 weekend of 300. The film grossed a total of $195,330,621 at United States and Canadian box offices, making it the first film in 2006 to pass the $100 million mark. On August 3, 2009, the film surpassed Finding Nemo and became the highest-grossing animated feature in foreign revenue with $457 million,[1] before it was replaced by the sequel, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs with more than $680 million. As of August 5, 2009, the film has grossed $655,388,158 worldwide and holds the forty-first spot on the list of highest-grossing films.[1] Ice Age: The Meltdown was the highest grossing animated film worldwide of 2006, but lost to Cars for being the highest grossing animated film in the U.S.
Soundtrack
The score is by John Powell; the soundtrack also features the song "Food Glorious Food" from the musical and film Oliver!. He composes brand new music for the film that replaced the theme songs from the previous film. Aram Khachaturyan's Adagio from Spartacus is featured during Scrat's Heavenly vision.
Sequel
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs was released on July 1, 2009. The teaser trailer was attached to Horton Hears a Who!.
Video game
A 2006 video and computer game based on the film was developed and published by Vivendi Games, and the Wii version was released shortly after the launch of the system.
| Ice Age 2: The Meltdown | |
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 North American Wii cover art |
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| Developer(s) | Vivendi Games, Eurocom, Amaze Entertainment |
| Publisher(s) | Vivendi Games, Sierra Entertainment |
| Platform(s) | Game Boy Advance, GameCube, Windows, Xbox, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2, Wii |
| Release date(s) |
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| Genre(s) | Adventure Game |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
| Rating(s) | |
| System requirements
Windows 2000 or better, Intel Pentium 4 1.4 GHz equivalent or higher, 256 MB RAM, 64Mb DirectX 9-compatible video card, DirectX 9-compatible sound card, 1.4 GB uncompressed hard drive space, 4x CD-ROM drive |
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Game plot
In this game, Scrat is caught up in the events of the film, Ice Age: The Meltdown and is trying to pursue acorns while interacting with some characters, some of whom help him in his quest. The game starts off by showing the icy areas where it began in the film and moving on to the woods, as well as exploring regions in the games such as the bowels of the sea reptile, Maelstrom, and swampy lands. In the game, Scrat occasionally allies himself with some of the main characters, and the player sometimes can play as either Sid or Diego, though not Manny. Characters which were shown as bit parts in the film are shown usually as adversaries or (in the case of one, a songbird) a guide to the next nut, though a select number of foes were not shown in the film at all.
See also
- List of computer-animated films
- List of animated feature-length films
- List of characters in the Ice Age films
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Ice Age: The Meltdown (2003)". Box Office Mojo. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=iceage2.htm. Retrieved 2009-07-01.
- ↑ Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006) - International Box Office Results
- ↑ Ice Age: The Meltdown DVD: Ray Romano, Denis Leary, John Leguizamo, Queen Latifah, Seann William Scott
- ↑ "Roger Ebert review of Ice Age: The Meltdown". http://www.rogerebert.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060330/REVIEWS/60323007/1023.
External links
- Official website
- Ice Age: The Meltdown at the Big Cartoon DataBase
- Ice Age: The Meltdown at Allmovie
- Ice Age: The Meltdown at the Internet Movie Database
- Ice Age: The Meltdown at Rotten Tomatoes
- Ice Age: The Meltdown at Metacritic
- Ice Age: The Meltdown at Box Office Mojo
- Video game
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