I took my son to see Ice Age Dawn of the Dinosaurs today and it’s so cute! As always, I enjoyed Ray Ramano’s dry sense of humor and the rich voice of Queen Latifah.
Scrat the prehistoric squirrel is still my favorite character though with his silly acorn-chasing antics! In this sequel, Scrat has a series of scrabbles with a sexy little flying squirrel named Scratte. For the adult audience members, their oneupmanship is unmistakable courtship and their on again off again romance that eventually ends badly is comically mindful of many a divorce experience. The acorn is fought for as viciously as custody and alimony are usually debated in the human sector.
However, the relationship between these two characters is the only place where disloyalty is presented and Scrat is penalized for putting his desire for a material possession (the acorn) above his love for Scratte. He ends up with nothing. No acorn and no flying squirrel mate. Poor Scrat. I’ll certainly watch faithfully to see if he learns to be loyal in Ice Age 4! (I’m loyal enough to be certain there will be another sequel!)
Ice Age 3 was all about loyalty and, as with the other Ice Age films, the plot and characters were so captivating that I doubt the children viewing the movie would ever suspect a moral undertone! Just as mommies occasionally sneak vitamins into twinkies, this film slipped substance into fluff.
When Sid the silly sloth slips into a sticky situation, Manny the mammoth must balance (often precariously) between saving his friend and keeping his family safe. Diego the tiger tears along too often teetering tortuously… I like alliteration…
A new friend, Buck the weasel, is wise to the world of dinosaur predators and willingly risks his own life to guard Manny who is unsure if he even wants this protection!
The film ends with a number of pats on the back for said loyalty. The unlikely mammoth, sloth, tiger pack remains intact and closer than ever, united by love for a new baby mammoth. They are further united by happy memories of predatory baby dinosaurs they left in the carefully delineated portion of prehistoria assigned to the dinosaur population the one and only entrance to which is guarded by their new friend Buck the crazy weasel who couldn’t leave the dinosaur region to join them in the icy bit of the world out of, you guessed it, loyalty to his nemesis, Rudy the giant dinosaur….
Ice Age Dawn of the Dinosaurs was a delightful adventure in the simple, beautifully innocent world of children. Sometimes I’m sad that I’m an adult and I know that Diego the tiger would have eaten any of his “friends” the first chance he got!
CB 
Relevant Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Ice_Age:_Dawn_of_the_Dinosaurs
