Awesome Movies - Ice Age

Manny (to Sid) - "You're an embarrassment to nature, do you know that?"

Ice Age is an animated adventure movie and it was released in 2002. It was produced by Blue Sky studios and it was directed by Carlos Saldanha and Chris Wedge. It stars the voices of Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Dennis Leary, etc.

It tells the story of three animals - Manny, Sid and Diego. Manny is a mammoth, Sid is a sloth and Diego is a saber-tooth tiger. They are forced by circumstances to come together as an unlikely herd and are also forced to take care of a human baby that they find. Now they have to somehow bring the baby back to his human herd. On the one side, the humans are far away from them and on the other side, they have weapons that could kill the three of them. And they have to do all of that at the same time that they are facing the coming of the ice age. So while all the other animals are going to migrate to escape the ice age, these three are forced to band together, take care of the baby, return him to his herd and do it without getting killed by the same human herd.

It also stars Scrat, a squirrel, who is always chasing after his acorn, and he is the official mascot of the series. How they become an unlikely herd, start to care for each other and try to bring the baby back to the human herd, those are all the things that make this movie so much fun to watch. It was also nominated for the Best Animated Feature at the 75th Academy Awards in 2003 but it lost to 'Spirited Away' which was directed by Hayao Miyazaki. Irrespective of that, this movie eventually led to many more movies in the 'Ice Age' series but no matter how many movies came after it, the first movie is still the best movie in the 'Ice Age' series.

The movie begins with all the animals trying to go south to avoid the coming of the ice age but one stubborn mammoth called Manny wants to go north as he is trying to avoid the ice age in his own way. On the way he meets Sid who is a sloth who just wants to make sure that he stays alive so he also ends up going with Manny on his journey. Also on the sidelines, there is Scrat a squirrel that is just obsessed with his acorn and whenver he tries to get close to his acorn, it ends up causing some gigantic damage. Unknown to all of them, there is a pack of sabretooth tigers that are hunting a human herd and one of the humans is a mother who has a baby with her. When the tigers try to kill her she jumps into a river and floats along with it. The leader of the tiger pack asks one of its members Diego to go and get the baby.

The baby ends up with Manny and Sid as the mother gives it to them just before she floats away with the river. So they end up taking care of the baby and Diego also joins them thinking that he will trap them and bring them to an ambush so that his pack can have both the baby and all of the meat of the mammoth. Manny who is a sensitive loner starts slowly to become friendlier with the other two and Sid starts to enjoy being finally part of a herd and Diego slowly starts to care for the baby and his two new friends. Finally, just before they are about to be ambushed, Diego changes sides and helps the other two to defeat the pack of tigers that were chasing them until now.

Now a strong herd that knows that they are one family, they reach the human herd and hand over the baby to his father and so the story finishes with all 3 characters having changed for the better. And even in the end, Scrat tries unsuccessfully to get that acorn and sure enough, even that causes some more damage and so, the movie ends with one last catastrophe because of Scrat and his acorn.

Manfred -

• You're an embarrassment to nature, do you know that?

Dialogue

1) Manfred: Guys, I thought we were in a hurry. And Diego, spit that out. You don't know where it's been. (Diego spits Sid out) Sid: Boy! For a second there, I actually thought you were gonna eat me! Diego: I don't eat junk food.

2) Manfred: Okay, look - if either of you get across that sinkhole in front of you, you get the sloth. Sid: That's right, you losers! You take one step and you're dead! (Throws rock, which bounces off the 'sinkhole' instead of sinking) Sid: You were bluffing, huh? Manfred: Yeah. Yeah, that was a bluff. (Sid quickly rushes back behind Manfred)

3) Diego: The baby? I was returning him to his herd. Sid: Oh yeah, nice try, bucktooth. Diego: You calling me a liar? Sid: I didn't say that. Diego: You were thinking it. Sid: (to Manfred) I don't like this cat. He reads minds.

The movie with its mix of laughs and a serious emotional story behind it, became a good hit and it proved that a movie can be both serious and funny at the same time. They made so many sequels and none of them could reach the level of this one's pure cinematic fun, enjoyment or power and so Ice Age remains the best 1 out of all the movies in the Ice Age series. It would be difficult to create the same group chemistry of these 3 unlikely friends who become 1 herd and then embark on various adventures. Plus the music by David Newman is also interesting and it was definitely one of the best movies if not then at least one of the best animated movies of the year. It was also the 9th highest grossing movie in north america and the 8th highest grossing movie worldwide in 2002.

Though it lost the 2003 Oscar for Best Animated Feature to Spirited Away, anyone who has seen the movie and felt its honest emotional impact, would always have a warm feeling for this movie. All of these reasons come together to make this a fun, wonderful, enjoyable and memorable movie. So due to all of these reasons, it is easy to understand that definitely, Ice Age is one of those Awesome Movies.

Thank you for reading Awesome Movies - Ice Age. Hope you have enjoyed it and had a good time with this article. There is an opinion poll below regarding what you thought about my article on awesome movies, so please feel free to take them, comment and give your opinions. Hope to see you soon on another article about another one of those awesome movies. Have a good day and once again, thank you for reading Awesome Movies - Ice Age.

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