If John Lasseter is computer animation’s Walt Disney, we have found its Tex Avery. And it’s about time. Chris Wedge, of Blue Sky Studios, won an Oscar for marrying a twisted sensibility to a sentimental edge with “Bunny.” Now, with his first full-length feature Ice Age, Wedge has wrapped a sweet story in hilarious anarchy. The film even has an undercurrent of nihilism. Manfred the Mammoth (Ray Romano) determinedly marches against the path of almost all the rest of the prehistoric animal kingdom. As the glaciers encroach, everyone and everything has begun the migration south, hoping to escape extinction. Driven by a passive bitterness, Manny heads deeper into the coming cold.
Accidentally saving uber-geek sloth Sid (John Leguizamo) from angry gay rhinos (voiced by Cedric The Entertainer and Stephen Root providing as much subtext as they can muster), Manny finds himself stuck with a companion. Abandoned by his tribe every year at migration time, Sid has no idea why no one will love him. It could be as Manny says, that he’s annoying.
Whatever. He’s still funny.
The two encounter a dying human mother and her baby (Tara Strong), who Manny reluctantly pulls from the water. Sid determines to return the baby to its herd, unaware that the humans have been forced into migration by a pack of sabertooths, led by the vicious Soto (Goran Visnjic).
Once joined by Diego (Denis Leary), a sabertooth sent to retrieve the baby for Soto, the film spends some time being Three Beasts And A Baby. Even with the impending betrayal by Diego, it works. Of course the cynical animal hearts soften (not Sid’s – he’s got a lot of love, if not any sense at all), but somehow, because Wedge has a great eye for physical gags, you hardly notice the sentiment. By the time you do, it’s too late. You believe it.
Running counter to all this is the saga of the Scrat. Meant to be a physical manifestation of the Ice Age versus the animals, the subplot features the strange little creature trying only to bury a nut, constantly foiled by nature. Almost Sisyphean in scope, it’s laugh out loud funny. Yes, a few of the Scrat’s bits have been featured in promos for this film for months, but they’re still funny.
Chalk that up to truly original character design. While Blue Sky Studios made a tremendous effort to capture what creatures of the era might have looked like, they’re still willing to sacrifice accuracy for entertainment. When necessary, the characters have a rubbery, anything-can-happen feel, especially Sid and The Scrat. Wedge also understands that comedy can be cruel, but if you do it fast enough, you can get away with it. Midway through the film reveals the true fate of the Dodos, and the whole sequence is sharp, smart, and classic. It’s also wonderfully sick at heart, but Wedge doesn’t give the audience a chance to think about it.
Part of what makes modern animation work lies in the casting, and Ice Age scores there, too. Not only did the filmmakers match voices to their characters well, they made the actors almost invisible within their roles. Jack Black is unrecognizable as an overeager saber, and though Visnjic has a distinctive voice, he underplays it. Of course, it isn’t really their show. Romano’s strangled tone lends heft to Manny. While Leguizamo plays slightly less cartoonishly than he did in Moulin Rouge, Sid still ends up a brilliant comic creation.
The real slick casting comes with Leary as Diego. This isn’t the first time Leary has done animation; he voiced Francis the male Ladybug in A Bug’s Life. But that was a somewhat awkward fit that he made work. Here Wedge has made Leary accessible to a family audience without hiding his edge. Diego has menace even as he makes us laugh, and it’s a credit to both animators and actor that we find ourselves sympathizing with him without ever forgetting what he has been sent to do.
A lot of hullabaloo has been made in the media about how computer animation has replaced the old ink and paint style in popularity. It’s a crock. We were just lucky in 2001 that two good animated films happened to be computer animated. (Here’s a hint: neither of them was Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, no matter what the Academy says.) Whether Shrek or Monsters, Inc. emerge as Best Animated Picture of 2001 remains to be seen. But I’ve already got my money down for the Best Animated Picture of 2002. It’s not a matter of popularity (though Ice Age should do well); it’s simply a matter of good storytelling.
