JAKE COYLE, AP Entertainment Writer
The “Ice Age” films, which now number four, might have a prehistoric setting like the Flintstones, but their cartoon world is much closer to Wile E. Coyote.
In the crowded arena of kiddie blockbusters, the “Ice Age” movies – the fourth of which is the new, 3-D “Ice Age: Continental Drift” – are among the more slapstick. When they are any good, the motley crew of critters is silly and stupid and going splat.
No one does this more than Scrat, a squirrel-rat combination who serves as something like the mascot of the movies. He wordlessly and desperately pursues an ever-elusive nut with the same ratio of success Wile E. had of catching the Road Runner. His frantic hunt is a kind of background diversion from the movies’ main action, which never amounts to the same delight.
“Ice Age: Continent Drift,” like the previous films, begins with Scrat inadvertently causing a cataclysmic event. In this case, his fall into the Earth’s core spurs the formation of the continents. It’s this kind of thing that makes the universe “Ice Age” pleasant: The history of the world is shaped not by things like asteroids or political leaders, but by pratfalls and peanuts.