It should be obvious to most people who watch this movie that Chris Wedge didn't direct it. Unfortunately, the movie seems to suffer a tremendous loss in quality because of it. There were even portions to Ice Age 2 that seemed... well... absolutely pointless.

Ice Age: The Meltdown suffered from that same problem with story, but wound up making things worse. The pacing was too slow, and none of the characters, both old or new, seemed too concerned about the urgency of the end of their world (Rather, the world they had within that valley.) until the climax, and it seemed only to service the not-too-well-done love story between Manny and Ellie.

That brings me to the talent. I like Ray Romano. Some people I know dislike him for his voice, but I think the voice honestly plussed a mammoth character like Manny. In fact, the original cast from the first movie greatly agreed with me. They were nice to look at and knew how to actually do voice talent.

My beef was with the additions to the cast. Some things I like Queen Latifah in, but she doesn't fit at all in Ice Age: The Meltdown. What is worse is her method of performance, playing the species-confused mammoth, Ellie. Queen seems to really... overdo it, playing as if she's playing to an extremely young audience, which, in my experience, kills the interest even in the extremely young audience! The actors who played the possum twins Crash and Eddie weren't as bad, but they seemed to make the possums even more annoying than the scripted dialog ever made them before. And then Jay Leno, a talented comedian... who seemed to play an unlike salesman-schemer type of character. It just seemed... not-Leno to me.

That brings me to the next department: Characters and their development. Again, the old boys did me good. I wasn't disappointed, aside from them acting... so unlike they were in Ice Age 1. Manny is emotional and unhappy through most of the movie at the prospect of being the last mammoth, up until Ellie appears, then he turns into an over-done romantic comedy character not unlike what you would see in a dreaded Julia Roberts film. Diego was even more alarming. Instead of being the tough, direct, tough "sentinel" of the bizarre 'herd' we liked in the first movie, he turned into a teddy bear with a fear of water. Sid was Sid, though he did seem somewhat more intelligently developed than Ice Age 1, which is out of character for him. And I'm not so certain that Sid from the first movie would be so respect-driven.

The new characters get on my nerves, particularly the possums. They were not just annoying, they were so incredibly annoying that I wanted to skip past all the parts in which they had played, which was almost the entire movie. They accomplished little story-wise, aside from annoying the original characters and, to a more severe degree, the audience. Then there's Ellie. She wasn't as bad as her "brothers" but the idea of a mammoth thinking she is a possum is such an incredible stretch, since common sense combined with a good head on her shoulders would cause her to notice a few things:

1. She is much larger than her brothers. 2. She is much heavier than her brothers. 3. She looks nothing like her brothers. 4. She doesn't share the same anatomy as her brothers.

So, to me, the idea that Ellie would think she is a possum seems rather insulting to the intelligence of the audience, unless she is revealed to be mentally deficient in some manner, which doesn't even seem remotely apparent to me.

Scrat shines at his best. Long live Scrat. In fact, Scrat was the true hero of the movie, having actually saved the valley from totally annihilation at the climax. Though that wasn't his intention. That makes it even funnier to me.

The visual look is nice and stunning, though not to the Pixar extreme. But nobody has ever done CG movies comparable in quality to Pixar's own. But still, they accomplished major improvements to the first movie, though there were bits that still screamed out "Computer Generated" to anyone who is looking for it, especially one shot where a massive torrent of water begins flooding the valley. It looked to congealed and computer-driven to me.

There were too many sudden shifts in set. At one shot, they're suddenly walking on solid ground and the next thing the audience knows, they're dangling on a tenuous stack of rocks, trying not to die. It happens numerous times in the film, where things happen to terrain that are illogical at best.

Music is excellent. I like the song that the mini-sloth tribe chanted, though it was too short to allow me to get into it. The vultures musical number was good, but seemingly out of place. The rest of the music is pretty good. Not all the way up there with music that god me going like Finding Nemo or the Lion King, but most composers don't actually make the attempt at making emotional music with the melancholy. Sound is sound. Hard to mess it up if you are professionals.

The movie is saved from extinction by Scrat. And one wonders how much better this film would have been had Chris Wedge directed this one like he directed the original. A lot of the jokes, unless Scrat related, didn't amuse me, though there were a few jokes I enjoyed. There was also a few jokes and lines *massively* inappropriate for younger audience, and with a lack of story or interesting in-character characters, the movie won't be captivating adults, either.