[Film Review] Ice Age 2: the Meltdown

This movie is about the adventures of a group of strange animals: Manny, a mammoth (a large elephant covered in fur. Today they’ re extinct); Sid, a sloth (a very lazy and slow animal); Diego, a sabre-tooth tiger (a tiger with very long teeth. Today it’s extinct) and Scrat, a squirrel covered in grey fur.

This little animal is always busy: he tries to get hold of an acorn, but he never succeeds in doing that; in some ways he also influences the life of the other characters. The trio, that lives in a giant “earth bowl” with other strange creatures, suddenly realizes that a very dangerous event is about to happen: the ice that protects the valley is going to melt. So, all the animals start travelling towards a big ark, that could save them from extinction. During their journey, the trio meets Ellie, another mammoth, and 2 possums: Eddy and Crash. Ellie, who at first thinks she is a possum, eventually discovers her true nature. After many dangerous adventures, they arrive at the ark and save themselves from the flood. And Scrat involuntarily sacrifices himself to block the meltdown.

In this film, there are many themes which are very modern, like the world’s overheating and racial differences. Today, the effects of pollution are making the Earth’s temperature grow. So, the ice is melting, exactly like in the movie, but while in the film the glaciers melt down for the natural increase of temperatures, today, in real life the temperature is rising because of pollution and of the greenhouse effect, caused by car exhausts and factory fumes.

Now, we know that the main cause of this phenomenon is the carbon dioxide produced by factories and industries, but unfortunately, people haven’t solved this problem yet, because this would probably mean the closedown of many important industries. Also, like in the film, some beautiful species are going to become extinct, as a consequence of global warming and of human activities. Some of these animals are: penguins, tigers, hippos, giraffes or rhinos. Then, also biodiversity might vanish, with some important natural sources that may disappear. Human selfishness is going to destruct our beautiful planet.

Another theme of the film is that of racial differences: Manny, considered the last mammoth, finally discovers a big group of members of his species, and Ellie, who lost her mother when she was a baby, lives with the possums inn perfect harmony. The message is that we can become tolerant like them.

One of the things that also touched us is that in dangerous situations you can discover the person you really are: this is very difficult to accept, especially in a society that masks everybody’s real emotions. I also liked very much how the most modest members of the group, Sid and Scrat, in the end save all the people, showing their intelligence.

Paolo Prazzoli e Alessandro Cirella