Ice Age 2: The Meltdown

Ice Age: The Meltdown
Theatrical Release Poster
Directed by	Carlos Saldanha
Produced by	Lori Forte
Written by	Jon Vitti
Starring	Ray Romano John Leguizamo Denis Leary Queen Latifah Jay Leno Seann William Scott Josh Peck Will Arnett Debi Derryberry
Music by	John Powell
Distributed by	20th Century Fox DreamWorks SKG(Australia) Walt Disney Pictures(Canada,France,Russia & others) Alliance Films (Canada & France)
Release date(s)	March 31, 2006
Running time	91 minutes
Country	USA
Language	English
Budget	$80 000 000
Gross revenue	Domestic $195,330,621[1] Worldwide $651,789,550[1]
Preceded by	Ice Age (2002)
Followed by	Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009)

Ice Age: The Meltdown, also known as Ice Age 2: The Meltdown or simply as Ice Age 2, is the 2006 film sequel to the computer-animated2002 film Ice Age. It was produced by Blue Sky Studios for 20th Century Fox, and premiered in Belgium and the Philippines on March 29,2006. It was eventually released in 70 countries, with the last release being in China, on June 9, 2006.^[2] It was directed by Carlos Saldanha, co-director of the original Ice Age, and the music is done by Robots composer, John Powell.This film was originally rated G by the MPAA, but was re-rated PG by the MPAA for some mild language and innuendo. The working title was Ice Age 2: The Meltdown, but for the movie's final release, the creators decided to remove the number 2, calling it Ice Age: The Meltdown. However, in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Mexico, and Australia, its title is promoted as Ice Age 2: The Meltdown. Also, most of the sponsors of the movie had the 2 in their packaging after the name change (they however did edit the 2 out of their TV ads).The Blu-ray Disc and DVD were released in the United States and Canada onNovember 21, 2006 according to the official web store.^[3] It was released in Mexico and Latin America in mid-June 2006 and released in the UK on October 23, 2006. They both include a brand new Scrat short, No Time for Nuts.

Plot

In the opening scene, Scrat, the saber-toothed squirrel climbs a glacier but accidentally opens a hole in it. The world of ice is slowly melting. The creatures of the Ice Age are all shown enjoying themselves on slides and pools made by the melting ice; among them the three protagonists of the first film: Manfred, Sid, and Diego. Sid opens a day camp, where none of the younger creatures take him seriously, nor do Manfred and Diego, which leaves Sid seeking a daring deed. Fast Tony , a local con artist is claiming that the earth will flood and that the bark and reeds which he sells are needed to stay alive. Manfred dismisses the idea, but is distracted when he sees that Sid will try to high dive from a giant waterfall; as Manfred goes with Diego to the top of the waterfall to save Sid from his act of daredevilry, they see that the pleasant weather caused the ice of the valley to melt, and it is kept from destroying the valley only by the glaciers, which have formed a dam. As the animals begin their journey, Sid sings three songs to tease Manny about Mammoths being "extinct". A turkey vulture tells the animals that a giant tree can act as a boat and save them; all soon set out to find it. During the time that the masses of animals escape, a glacier which contains two sea reptiles from the Mesozoic era, (Cretaceous and Maelstrom), breaks off.

Manfred is teased about being the last mammoth alive, but meets Ellie, a female mammoth who believes she is an opossum and the sister of Crash and Eddie. Sid invites her to tag along with the group to escape the flood, and she brings her brothers. After a perilous ordeal with Cretaceous and Maelstrom, Sid finds out that Diego is afraid of water. They discover an area which Ellie recalls as the place where she was adopted. She finally realizes she is a mammoth but distances herself from Manny when he suggests "saving their species". Sid is kidnapped by a tribe of mini-sloths who believe Sid to be a god. Sid lights a fire for them, and believes that he has finally found respect, but they plan to sacrifice him to a volcano. Sid escapes. The next morning Sid tells them his experience but none are convinced. They find a field of hot geysers, which separate Manfred, Sid, and Diego from Ellie and her brothers.

When the flood comes, Manfred saves Ellie from drowning as she is caught in some rocks, while Diego overcomes his fear of water to save Sid. Cretaceous and Maelstrom arrive, but due to Manfred's quick thinking, they are finished off by a rock which falls on them, killing them both. The other animals are at the mercy of the water currents. Meanwhile Scrat climbs up the glacier and at the top sticks the acorn he has into the ice. This forms a crack in the glacier, which widens into a fissure, diverting the flood and saving the animals. Scrat is then washed away. In the final scene, a herd of mammoths shows up, but Manny and Ellie decide to remain together anyway, taking Sid, Diego, and theopossum brothers along. The epilogue shows Scrat having a near death experience after falling into the fissure. He enters a heaven full of acorns. Suddenly, he finds himself torn away. He unhappily wakes up, having been resuscitated by Sid.

Characters

Main article: List of characters in the Ice Age films

• Manfred "Manny" the woolly mammoth, played by Ray Romano
• Sid the ground sloth, played by John Leguizamo
• Diego the Smilodon, played by Denis Leary
• Scrat the saber-toothed squirrel, played by Chris Wedge
• Ellie the woolly mammoth, played by Queen Latifah
• Crash and Eddie the opossums, played by Seann William Scott and Josh Peck respectively
• Fast Tony the giant armadillo, played by Jay Leno
• Stu the glyptodont, played by Tom Fahn
• James the aardvark, played by Alex Sullivan
• Cholly the Chalicothere, played by Alan Tudyk
• Lone Gunslinger, played by Will Arnett

Promotions

• As an additional marketing ploy a special "anti-cell" spot was created with Sid complaining to the audience about a ringing cellular phone. The same was done for Brother Bear, I, Robot, Kung Fu Panda, and Robots (another Blue Sky Studios film).
• On Family Guy's episode "Sibling Rivalry", Scrat is shown trying to take three nuts out of a side of a glacier; Peter shows up and tries to stop him, admonishing the squirrel for stealing, which drives Scrat to subsequently attack Peter. Apart from Peter, the scene was rendered in 3D (Family Guy is normally drawn in 2D), and Scrat was voiced by Chris Wedge who voices him in the films. The episode originally aired the week before the film opened. Fox aired promotions for the movie throughout the evening.
• During the same evening of Scrat's Family Guy cameo, Sid was hosting the entire FOX line-up, showing up in intermittent times between commercials.
• A teaser trailer for The Simpsons Movie was attached to every print of the movie, despite rumors that it was only on some prints.
• Re-edited scenes of Ice Age: The Meltdown were shown in Airhead candy commercials on several kids' channels and programs, such as the Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, ABC Kidson ABC, and more. It shows, in part, that after Scrat defeats a school of piranha, he proudly displays an Airhead packet (replaced by an acorn in the actual movie), when suddenly aneagle comes over and swipes it from him.
• One of the posters for the film was a parody of an iPod advertisement, with "iAge" replacing "iPod" and an acorn replacing an iPod. The poster can be viewed at [1].

Reception

Critical reception

Ice Age: The Meltdown opened on March 31, 2006 to mixed reviews, with Rotten Tomatoes giving the film a "fresh" rating, with 56% of reviews positive. Its Metacritic score is 58 [2], placing it at the high end of the site's "mixed or average reviews" category. Roger Ebert gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four.[3]

Box office

The film exceeded expectations by opening with an $68,033,544 in its first weekend. This was the second biggest opening for a non-summer, non-holiday release, after the $83,848,082 of the The Passion of the Christ. But the record for highest grossing weekend for March only lasted a year, due to the $70,885,301 weekend of 300. The film grossed a total of $195,330,621 at United States and Canadian box offices, making it the first movie in 2006 to pass the $100 million mark.

In the Netherlands, the film grossed €152,262 in its first week, not enough to enter the top 10. In its second week (March 30 - April 5), the film moved up to #1, grossing €1,350,375, kickingInside Man from its #1 position there. The film has accomplished an amazing job by remaining in the top 3 for 9 weeks. In total, the film grossed € 6,108,685 in the Netherlands. As ofJanuary 12, 2007, the film grossed a massive $651,564,512 worldwide according to Box Office Mojo, surpassing all expectations and netting the film a massive profit given the moderate budget of $80 million. At time of writing, it holds the 33rd spot on the list of highest-grossing films.

Soundtrack

The score is by John Powell; the soundtrack also features the song "Food Glorious Food" from the musical and film Oliver!. He composes brand new music for the film that replaced the theme songs from the previous film. Aram Khachaturyan's Adagio from Spartacus is featured during Scrat's Heavenly vision.

Sequel

According to Box Office Mojo, an Ice Age 3 is in the works, with a planned release date of July 4, 2009, titled Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs^[4]. The teaser trailer was attached to the filmHorton Hears a Who.

Video game

Ice Age 2: The Meltdown
North American cover art for Wii
Developer(s)	Vivendi Games, Eurocom, Amaze Entertainment
Publisher(s)	Vivendi Games, Sierra Entertainment
Platform(s)	Wii, Windows, PlayStation 2,Xbox, GameCube, Nintendo DS,Game Boy Advance
Release date(s)	NA March 14, 2006 PAL March 31, 2006 Nintendo DS & PlayStation 2 NA March 14, 2006 PAL March 31, 2006 JP October 6, 2006 Wii NA December 6, 2006 EU December 8, 2006 AUS February 15, 2007
Genre(s)	Action
Mode(s)	Single-player
Rating(s)	BBFC: U (Universal) CERO: A (All Ages) ESRB: E10+ (Everyone10+) OFLC: G (General) PEGI: 3+ USK: Alle
System requirements	Windows 2000 or better, IntelPentium 4 1.4 GHz equivalent or higher, 256 MB RAM, 64MbDirectX 9-compatible video card,DirectX 9-compatible sound card, 1.4 GB uncompressed hard drive space, 4x CD-ROM drive

A video and computer game based on the film was developed and published by Vivendi Games, and the Wii version was released shortly after the launch of the system.

Plot

In this game, Scrat is caught up in the events of the film, Ice Age: The Meltdown and is trying to pursue acorns while interacting with some characters, some of whom help him in his quest. The game starts off by showing the icy areas where it began in the film and moving on to the woods, as well as exploring regions in the games such as the bowels of the sea reptile, Maelstrom, and swampy lands. In the game, Scrat occasionally allies himself with some of the main characters, and the player sometimes can play as either Sid or Diego, though not Manny. Characters which were shown as bit parts in the film are shown usually as adversaries or (in the case of one, a songbird) a guide to the next nut, though a select number of foes were not shown in the film at all.

References

1. ^ ^{a b} "Ice Age: The Meltdown (2003)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved on 2009-02-05.
2. ^ Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006) - International Box Office Results
3. ^ Ice Age: The Meltdown DVD: Ray Romano, Denis Leary, John Leguizamo, Queen Latifah, Seann William Scott
4. ^ http://boxofficemojo.com/schedule/?view=changes&p=.htm