Always mess with success.
This anti-wisdom explains the odd creative calls behind Fox’s newest installment of their popular CGI series.
Ice Age 1 – 3 were fun and predictable, featuring the animated antics of Manny the Mammoth (voiced by Ray Romano) and his wise-cracking Pleistocene pals as they embark on various epic journeys.
But for Ice Age 4 studio execs craved something new.
Initially, they wanted something new and cheap.
They wanted a clip movie. This would have involved minimal original footage of Manny and friends recalling past events from their past films.
The old footage is then shown in the form of a flashback.
However spirited reactions from Blue Sky Studios convinced the execs to change course.
Next they wanted something ‘hot and today’ involving the characters wearing baggy pants and hip-hop dancing. Screenwriters Michael Berg and Jason Fuchs were told to set the story in 21st Century Manhattan, where the animals find themselves trapped in the future—and loving it!
Directors Steve Martino and Michael Thurmeier derailed this idea.
Finally after a tortuous series of creative meetings in which the execs fought for a courtroom drama where Manny is on trial for his life, a dream sequence overturning an entire story, and something involving the circle of life, a compromise was reached.
Don’t believe the zippy trailer in which squirrel Scat (Chris Wedge) inadvertently splits the continents while chasing an acorn. The picture now follows the attempts of Manny, Sid the Sloth (John Leguizamo) and Diego the Saber-Tooth Tiger (Denis Leary) to escape from a La Brea-like pit of asphalt where are they hopelessly trapped.
And so is the audience.
Despite funny interactions with other stuck creatures, the film stays bogged-down with its protagonists. In desperation, the creators tried joking their way out. At one point, Manny struggles furiously to escape, fails, then turns to camera and shrugs, saying “It’s a living.”
This stock gag from The Flintstones is followed almost immediately by an appearance from Fred and Barney who pass the tar pit en route to the bowling alley. Later, long-running comic strip character Alley Oop wanders past and clubs Sid’s crazy grandmother (Wanda Sykes) who is haplessly trying to free her grandson.
In a dark interlude, the filmmakers show the grandmother wandering around dazed with concussion until she finally collapses and is devoured by dire wolves and vultures.
How does the film end?
It does.
Corwin C. Tuggles brought much needed warmth to his role as Additional Voices (voice.)
2 stars for old-times sake.
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