After their various adventures, the animals thoughts are now turning to love and marriage. Mammoths Manny and Ellie (Romano and Latifah) are struggling with the idea of their daughter Peaches (Palmer) marrying the enthusiastic Julius (Devine). Sid the sloth (Leguizamo) is feeling lovelorn. And tigers Diego and Shira (Leary and Lopez) aren't sure they should procreate. But now there's a bigger issue to face: a giant asteroid is threatening them all with extinction, and their only hope is to work with the Shangri Llama (Ferguson) they discover in a wacky place called Geotopia.

Not that the plot has any relevance to anything. It's just an excuse for lots of goofy action and jokey interaction between these endearing, loveable characters. And through it all, Scrat continues to chase his elusive acorn, this time in a spaceship he found under the ice, took off in and is now zapping the cosmos to add to the general mayhem. Yes, the whole thing is utterly stupid, adding "traditional" values to the insane science, while ironically including a jab at climate change deniers.

The starry vocal cast is the main draw here, and most of the actors are recognisable because they are playing on their usual personas. Once again, Sykes (as Sid's sassy Granny) and Pegg (as the woozy mad-genius Buck) are the show-stealers. But Ferguson's loony energy is even funnier. And Jesse J adds some nuttiness as a British hippie sloth. Of course, it helps that all of the characters are likeable, including the unnecessarily villainous dino-bird Gavin (Offerman).

Visually, director Thurmeier takes an ambitious and assured approach to both the comedy and action, indulging in plenty of snappy 3D gags. It moves at such a brisk pace that the script's simplicity kind of blurs into the lushly rendered background. But youngsters will no doubt understand that everything about this movie is wrong, from the prehistoric timeline to the corny ideal that all mammals are have just one goal: to marry and settle down. The filmmakers only get away with this because they keep us giggling.

themes, vulgarity, violence

9.Jul.16