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Canberra Today 13°/16° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Review: ‘Ice Age 4: Continental Drift’ (PG) ??

THE mum and her two ankle-biters were one row behind and a couple of seats left of me in an otherwise almost empty cinema.

The younger one chirruped happily, climbed over seats and gave every indication of having fun. The older paid attention to Steve Martino’s film compressing events spanning several million years into the 93-minute latest in an animation series that began well a decade ago, but has now passed its use-by date.

Visually it’s typical CG. Narratively, it’s fluff. Scrat is still cherishing his acorn. Mastodon Manny gets separated from his wife and daughter when Pangaea breaks up. He, sabre-toothed pal Diego, sloth Sid and Sid’s granny float away on an iceberg promising to return ASAP for a family reunion.

They fall foul of a crew of pirates led by villainous Captain Gutt and have adventures of every maritime kind before the family reunion. End of story.

The film offers no novelty. We don’t expect scientific validity in an animated wildlife-based fantasy, but a series crammed with misinformation about important events in our planet’s back-story is less than honest to its principal audience – below about grade 2. The film has one redeeming feature – it rejects creationism. But little kids won’t know that.

At all cinemas

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Dougal Macdonald

Dougal Macdonald

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