THIN ICE INDEED

REVIEWED - ICE AGE: THE MELTDOWN: IT IS some measure of the paucity of imagination on display in this sequel to 20th Century Fox's first computer-animated feature that nobody thought to title it The Second Ice Age. Mind you, the first film was set where it was partly to accommodate the rudimentary digital technologies available way back in 2002. Ice and snow are, one would guess, a lot easier to render than trees, rivers and such.

We should not be altogether surprised that the franchise's creators, more experienced, blessed with faster computers, have now decided to end the Ice Age and move their alliteratively named creatures - Manny Mammoth, Sid Sloth, others - out among green hills and cascading streams.

Well, sad to relate, The Meltdown looks only marginally less humdrum than its predecessor. The verdant uplands, like the glaciers, still seem to be composed of suspiciously regular polygons. The characters' faces, particularly that of the grumpy sabre-tooth tiger, remain boringly impassive. Younger children will probably enjoy it well enough. Their older siblings, spoilt rotten by Pixar, may regard the animation as little more sophisticated than that produced by flick-books.

The plot, packed with both biblical allusions and ecological warnings, has our heroes desperately trying to escape the flooding of the saucer-shaped hollow in which they live. Meanwhile, that squirrel thing, once again the funniest character in the picture, encounters mishaps while seeking to capture an acorn.

There is some good news. Before the picture sputters to a halt, Manny, voiced lugubriously by Ray Romano, finds love with a lady mammal who sounds like Queen Latifah. Isn't it a shame that Hollywood only allows African-Americans to nuzzle Italian-Americans when both are playing long-extinct quadrupeds?