Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Blue Sky Studios. The computer animation company that has previously done special effects like the “slide” penguin in “Fight Club” and the Aliens in “Alien Resurrection,” as well as the occasional commercial, has just emerged as the third major force in full-length computer animation. After winning an Oscar for they’re stunningly rendered, touching and mature short film “Bunny,” Blue Sky has moved to tackle a full-length family feature. Like its predecessors Pixar (“Toy Story”) and P.D.I. (“Shrek”), Blue Sky has produced a witty, entertaining film with strong visuals that deservedly made a box-office killing last weekend.
While the plot itself is somewhat thin — a comically mismatched herd tries to return a lost human child to his family — director Chris Wedge has filled the film with enough laugh-out-loud funny moments and some surprisingly weighty issues to overcome its shortcomings. The heard is made up of Manfred, a Mammoth (Ray Romano, “Everybody Loves Raymond”), Sid the Sloth (John Leguizamo, “Moulin Rogue”) and the film’s sort-of villain, a saber-toothed tiger named Diego (Denis Leary, “The Job.”) The cast members play off each other quite well — Romano’s dry wit, Leguizamo’s annoying wackiness and Leary’s cold edge are all perfect for their characters, and their on-screen chemistry is thoroughly amusing.
Blue Sky also moves away from the photo-realistic computer animation that many of the other studios (particularly Square Co. Ltd., which was dissolved after the failure of “Final Fantasy”) strive for. Instead, they have found their own uniquely cartoonish style. “Ice Age” is a cartoon, it knows it’s a cartoon, so it just tries to be as cool-looking a cartoon as it can be. The character and set designs are all perfectly stylized to suit the story and its slapstick nature. In fact, many have compared them to a CGI Looney Toons, and the comparison is legitimate. It’s not out of the question to see a character’s eyes bulge out or get flattened and still come out ok, which perhaps would be a little unnerving if the characters were any more life like.
The film’s fourth star, Scrat — half squirrel, half rat — is a perfect example of the comical exaggeration. Those who have seen the film’s many trailers know that the poor little guy gets clobbered in a variety of different ways as the film progresses, but it’s a cartoon, so he always comes out on alive. Scrat’s only goal is to crack open a little acorn, but he seems to cause disaster every time. Rumor has it that he was initially pegged to appear only in the films opening scene, but he tested so popular that the animators decided to put him in the rest of the film, and that seems pretty accurate. Scrat’s scenes are more like little interstitials that don’t really affect the plot; he just pops in at opportune moments to add little comical asides.
Anyone who has seen “Bunny” knows Chris Wedge doesn’t shy away from handling mature issues. That short film, defiantly not meant for children, was about a subtle character study dealing with the issues of death and longing. It’s no surprise then that Wedge handles some of the more mature themes in “Ice Age” — the circle of life — if you will, more smoothly than he does the obligatory “we’re friends” stuff. A few of those neo-Disney “we’re sticking together” moments do exist, but thankfully they’re brief, since they are the film’s chunkiest aspect. More impressive was how he subtly wove in subplots and back stories dealing with prejudice and survival while still keeping the film light and suitable for a family audience.
A lot has been made in recent months about how much more successful computer animated films have been than hand drawn traditional animation. One has to look no further than “Ice Age” to find out why. “Ice Age” may not have the most original premise, but through some clever twists it elevates itself beyond pure eye candy. Whereas traditionally animated films like “Atlantis” have been underwhelming. “Ice Age” is animation at its best — entertaining, thought provoking and pretty darn cool to look at. Hopefully, it’s an indicator of what Chris Wedge and Blue Sky Studios will be bringing us in future outings. B+
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