Ice Age 4 - Continental Drift (2012)

Previously on my Ice Age the Third review " Ellie said "Welcome to the Ice Age" and all of the main characters gather round .We finally see Scrat getting his real life but throw it all way over an acorn but got lost it and dose his iconic scream. The would be an great ending to the franchise!" Oh so I wish, for the most part I've review three Ice Age movies and I like them all but not this one. WHY?! I didn't asked for a fourth movie- oh its because Blue Sky wants to stay alive and it's their flagship franchise. This movie made 879 million in the box office, that's twice more then Wreck-It-Ralph! But was you guess it received critically bad reviews with a 37% at Rotten Tomatoes. So without a further-a-do let's see if Ice Age the fourteenth deserves the hate?:

For starters it has good animation

Concept: The whole concept of the movie being continents moving which is a fitting plot and time to the movie since that actually happens in real life. And I love the Earth isn't what it is before so there you go the people behind it really did do their homework and re-search.

Fun fact: This is the only movie and only time Scrat was called by his name "Let's see what moves you got! Dance little Scrat fish!"

Speaking of Scrat I like how they give him to go to the long gone acorn Atlantis and I love that the siren mimic as Scratte by Scrat rejected it but the siren became a nut and Scrat went after it. There isn't much to talk about Scrat and I missed the Scrat and Scratte Dynamic and I wish I was watching the THIRD movie.

The biggest mis-opportunity of the entire movie for me: If you asked me the movie should have focus more on Manny's and Peaches dynamic like instead of Sid replace him with Peaches like I'll love to see the two together so we can see a daughter and father conflict, it makes it more interesting and has more depth to it. Meanwhile Sid is with Ellie and we can see Sid reunite with his again family and his family finally love him. Wait a minute family?! Like the glass scene from the first Ice Age movie?! It can not foreshadowing right?!

Peaches is meh: Peaches is just like any typical teenage story, conflict with family , abandoned best friend to be with the cool ones and does gymnastics to kick Gutt. That is it that's her character arc I guess. And hangs around with her "friend" Louise what ever he's called, he dose absolutely nothing in this movie he is with Peaches , got a conflict and save Peaches; he is such a nothing character too and I think he is a weird inclusion.

The stupid Minion rip-offs: There is an scene where all of the little animals (for some unknown reason already slaves with no build up) it feels like Blue Sky is like "HEY ILLUMINATION GOT MINIONS SO WHY NOT WE NEED OUR OWN MINIONS"! They suck because they had nothing to add to the plot of the movie like in the first Despicable Me the Minions are more for a gag (but later on they became the main characters in the spin-off because why wouldn't they be the main characters). They are boring at worse ,none of the comedy they attempt isn't funny and they are far worse then the then the Minions if you ask Me.

The villain is Half-Baked: Captain Gutt is a fine villain because I do like his design and Peter Dinklage dose an great performance of him but his character is another story; You see Gutt is a bad guy so why? We don't have a clear answer and it feels like his being bad for the sake of it. Why dose he hates the continent? At the end he was tricked by fishes by mimicking a girl version of him or if that's suppose his wife MOVIE I need answers! His death is very lame and predictable like the Disney villains death are a lot more tame then this!

The biggest problem with the movie in my opinion: The biggest issue with this movie is that there are way too many characters like there's Sid's family. the pirates , the whale, this fish monsters , the minion rip-off, the other mammoths and Louise. As a result they all felt rushed and undeveloped. They also have so many celebrity voice actors so why to do they cast so many voice actors? To show off? To get much money? (sounds like Illumination to me).

Diego is the best part of the movie: I will say this movie handled Diego pretty well especially with his love interest Shira. The scene where Diego talks to Shira ,

Diego "Can I tell you the difference you and me."

Shira "I wouldn't wearing the necklace."

Diego "No, we both might have wanted out of pack life but at least I didn't trade one pack for another, I got something more."

Shira "Oh yeah what's that?"

Diego " A herd."

Shira " What's the difference?"

Diego " We have each other's back."

Shira " Gutt has my back, he's my first mate."

Diego " Really? Because I don't see Gutt's sending out any search parties for you."

Honestly that's sounds like what Diego would have said. Shira's character arc is basically Diego again.

Sid and Crash and Eddy are fine: There isn't much to talk about Sid since he is back to his normal routes as the comic side kick again but I do like how he mention the dinosaurs to his grandmother. Crash and Eddy like Sid there isn't much to say about the two and that's because they got an minor role, that's strange to me because in the previous two movies they had a role like in the Meltdown they are Ellie's body guards and the Third they are Buck's fan boys but here they got nothing.

The comedy is surprisingly funny: This one of the biggest redeemable quality to this movie to me is the comedy; The only new character I love (other then Gutt and Shira) is Flint because every time he says something funny and Iconic line for 5 minutes , "Banana peeling" , "Oh no he's gone forever!, Oh there he is!" , "Ahh" " Not the Spoon Flint" You know what Not the spoon Flint is my "Iconic" line," NoT thE SpO0n FlINt!". The siren scene is the weirdest scene in the entire Ice Age franchise because Sid and Diego have a kiss but it's pretty funny to me. Similar to The Meltdown where this movie too have pop culture references but thankfully they aren't often.

The scene where the badger just got Buck's sword and this is so baffling , like just how and I can't be bother to say any more because this franchise can just throw whatever they want at me.

They tried to be cool with the pop music and culture with when back to Ice Age 2 again. I think we are family song is kinda generic, not bad but not good either. I also want to mention the pirates has a musical number for some reason like guys it's not a Disney, Life isn't some cartoon musical where you sing a little song and your inspired dreams magically come true , so let it go of milking this franchise! For real the song isn't bad of any means it's just, why?

Final thoughts: So yeah that was Ice Age the fourteenth , this very movie started the down fall of Ice Age to me. Is it Classic Cinematic Junk? Not really there are good stuff I found with this movie (especially Flint) so it's not a complete waste of time and this is why I give it a 3 stars, but I found some bad stuff too. I would argue it's worse then Ice Age 2. I can understand why some people would like this movie. Would I recommend it? No just skip this one and just watch the three Ice Age movies and the other one next. ( Which will gets it's own review for another time). It's not bad as I thought it will be but it's not good either. I will say if that is the ending to the franchise I will like it more in fact this is a good finale to the series. That's everything I got to say, YET because we got a the very, very VERY last one.

pls help me