Right kid, whatever you do don't mention extinction to the mammouth.

Ice Age is an attempt by makers Fox, to enter the highly profitable world of computer animated movies.

Review by Neil Heath

It may not have the charm of Monster's Inc, or the humour of Shrek, but Ice Age is a neat, fairly amusing tale that the kids will love. However there's not enough for adults.

Plot
As ice starts to cover the planet 20,000 years ago, a group of animals come across a stranded human baby.

Despite their distrust of humans, Manfred the moody mammouth, Sid the salivating sloth and Diego a Sabretooth Tiger (who has divided loyalties), attempt to return the baby to it's family.

A bit of a friendly mauling never did anyone any harm.

Meanwhile, Diego's own pack are hot on the trail, hoping to eat Manfred for brekkie and have the baby as a light snack.

Review
Ice Age is a simple tale, the story isn't exactly complex.

However, what it does do, is to provide solid, funny looking characters that children will adhere to.

Here's what a sabre toothed squirrel looks like.

Ice Age isn't very long and it doesn't take any risks. The animation is also not outstanding.

The film is not as polished, or as detail conscious as one of Disney or Dreamwork's productions.

The gags are simple, relying mostly on Sid's clumsiness and the other animal's tired reaction towards him.

However, The majority of the humour on show, comes from a sabre tooth squirrel (if there was such a thing), called Scrat. He spends the whole film trying to save his precious acorn, going through absolute hell preserving it.

Sid the sloth shows us how he deals with a noisy child.

It's a great film for kids and with half term coming up, it's a good way for them to spend some of their time.

However, unfortunately there's not enough here for those of us who want that little bit extra from an animated film.