Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs picks up with As Manny & Ellie preparing for the arrival of their baby. Diego, Sid, Crash and Eddie are all still part of the herd but Diego is getting bored with family life and longs for adventure. He explains that Manny doesn’t have time for them anymore because he has a family of his own now. Each of them decides to strike out on their own – Diego seeking adventure and Sid looking for a family to belong to.
Sid takes a fall and discovers three eggs, apparently abandoned by their mother. Voila! The family he longs for is before him. He sets out to move them somewhere safe and hatch them. The fact that he hatches three tiny T-rexes is inconsequential to him as he sees only that they are his new family. Sid brings them back to Manny and company to proudly show off his family. When the triplets wreak havoc on the winter playground Manny built for his own offspring, Manny & Ellie order Sid to take the terrible trio back to their mother.
Just then Mama shows up in the shape of full grown T-Rex. She scoops up her three little ones & catches Sid along with them. Now Manny, Ellie, Eddie & Crash must set off to save their friend. Diego hears the ruckus and returns to join the herd.
The group faces many dangers, makes a new friend who assists them on their journey and Sid is tentatively accepted by the mama T-Rex into her family.
Over and over we are asked to consider what makes a family. Is it just a mom, dad and their biological children as demonstrated by Manny, Ellie and their child? Is it a group of ragtag individuals who choose to live together like the Sid, Manny and Diego once did? Is it a mixture of biology and love as the T-rexes who care for Sid show us? Or is it a little of all of the above? Personally, I tend to lean toward the latter.
Scrat is back and for me provides the comic highlights of the film. Finding a female, he is torn between his new feelings for her and those for his first love – the acorn. The interaction between the two is charming and hysterical by turns and my favorite scene comes near the end of the movie when Scrat makes his choice.
Voiced by all of the original stars, Ray Romano, Queen Latifah, Dennis Leary And John Leguizamo, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is an adequate entry in the series. It is not stellar by comparison to the first movie Ice Age but the characters are true to form and just as lovable. Some nods to other films are also amusing as when Eddie & Crash, after inhaling helium, begin the sing the Chipmunk Christmas Song or when “Yabba Dabba Doo” from The Flintstones is called out. This won’t be at the top of the hottest movies of summer list but it’s a decent film.

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs