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Ellie (Queen Latifah) and Manny (Ray
Romano) are expecting their first child, and Manny is obsessed with making
life perfect and safe for the family, since his first experiences as a
husband and father went bad when his family was killed by hunters. At the
same time, Diego (Denis Leary) finds himself unable to catch a cocky
gazelle (Bill Hader) he has been stalking and decides to leave the herd,
believing that he is losing his predatory nature as a tiger. Sid (John
Leguizamo) grows jealous of Manny and Ellie and "adopts" three apparently
abandoned eggs that he finds in an icy underground cavern and call them
Eggbert, Shelly, and Yoko. Manny tells him to put them back, but Sid
instead looks after the eggs, which hatch into baby Tyrannosaurus the next
morning.
Although Sid tries his best to raise the three dinosaurs, their
rambunctious behavior scares away all the other animals' young and ruins a
playground Manny built for Ellie's baby. A female Tyrannosaurus, Momma,
whose eggs Sid stole, soon returns and carries both Sid and her young
underground, with Diego in pursuit. Manny, Ellie, Crash, and Eddie (Seann
William Scott, Josh Peck) follow as well and discover that the icy cavern
leads to a vast jungle populated by dinosaurs thought to be extinct. Here,
an Ankylosaurus threatens the herd despite Diego's efforts to fend it off;
they are saved from a further crowd of angry reptiles by an insane,
one-eyed weasel named Buckminster, or Buck (Simon Pegg).
Buck has been living in this jungle for some time and is chasing Rudy, a
large albino Suchomimus, with the intention of avenging the loss of his
left eye at Rudy's hands. He agrees to lead the herd through the jungle's
perils to Lava Falls, where Momma has taken Sid and her babies. At one
point, they have to cross the "Chasm of Death" which if filled with gas
fumes (a mixture of helium and laughing gas, casuing anyone who breathes
in it to laugh uncontrollably while speaking in a high-pitched voice). In
the meantime, Sid and Momma try to outdo each other in feeding the
offspring; he loses this contest, but is soon welcomed into the family
regardless. The next day, however, Sid is separated from the family and
attacked by Rudy. Sid is knocked onto a loose rock slab that is floating
on a river of lava and about to plummet over the falls.
As the herd moves toward Lava Falls, Ellie goes into labor and a Guanlong
pack strikes, causing a rock slide that separates her from Manny and
Diego. Manny doubles back to protect her and Diego fends off further
attacks, while Buck takes Crash and Eddie ahead to rescue Sid. Just as he
goes over the falls, the trio swoops in on a commandeered Pteranodon only
to been chased by a flock of Quetzalcoatlus on the way and saves his life.
Manny reaches Ellie, and there is suddenly a reaction, the cry of a
newborn baby, then he sees that it is a girl. He wants to name her Ellie,
or Little Ellie, but Ellie instead names her Peaches after the fruit (and
the codeword they had chosen for Ellie to use if she went into labor
during the trip). Sid is saddened at the fact that he never had a chance
to say goodbye to "his" children as he returns to the herd and learns of
Peaches' birth.
As they venture back to the tunnel, they are shocked to discover Rudy
lurking inside of the entrance. Rudy exits the tunnel and attacks at full
force; Buck lures Rudy away from the group and is nearly eaten himself,
before Diego saves him at the last second. Manny, Sid, Diego, and Buck
manage to ensnare Rudy and knock him unconscious, but as they begin to
leave, Sid trips over one of the ropes and breaks it. Rudy quickly
recovers and escapes, and is about to attack Sid when Momma arrives on the
scene, charging at Rudy and knocking him off a cliff before roaring her
victory. As she and her children wish Sid well, Buck – now without a
purpose in life since Rudy is gone – decides to join the herd and live on
the surface. However, a distant roar tells him that Rudy is still alive;
he changes his mind and sends the herd home, blocking off the path to the
underground jungle at the same time so that no one else can go down there.
Manny and Ellie welcome Peaches into their frozen world and admit that Sid
did a good job looking after Momma's children (though Manny tells Diego
that he will never let Sid babysit Peaches). Diego decides to remain with
the herd, while Buck stays where he wants to be: underground, battling it
out with Rudy.
Scrat and Scratte
Like the previous Ice Age films, the film opens with the saber-toothed
squirrel Scrat (Chris Wedge), who does everything he can to retrieve his
precious acorn. This time, he falls in love with his female counterpart
Scratte (Karen Disher), with the song "You'll Never Find Another Love Like
Mine" by Lou Rawls playing in the background, but an acorn appears instead
after the music stops. The two fight over the acorn with Scatte is flung
off the ground. As Scrat tries to save her, the two hold onto the acorn
and the music starts back. Suddenly, she demonstrates her ability to glide
like a flying squirrel, leaving Scrat falling to the ground. The two
eventually fall in love after Scrat saves her from falling to her death in
the lava river while she is unconscious. He even chooses to focus his
attention on her instead of the acorn until the end of the film, when he
tires of her finicky nature and reverts to his old ways. The ensuing fight
between the couple leads to a volcanic explosion that hurls Scrat and the
acorn back to the surface, leaving Scratte trapped underground. However,
as Scrat is about to enjoy his acorn, a stray piece of ice falls on him
and knocks the acorn back into Scratte's hands. He screams in frustration,
having lost both his acorn and Scratte. |
