ICE AGE 3

The third part of the ‘Ice Age’ saga suffers from franchise fatigue—the critters, most of whom weare familiar with from the past couple of films, and some that have been added in – don’t really get to do much that’s fresh and new.

Here they are, one more time—woolly mammoths Manny and Ellie now getting ready for parenthood, saber-tooth tiger Diego scared of losing his edge, acorn-loving squirrel Scrat finding romance in Scratte, scatty sloth Sid stumbling upon dinosaur eggs.

That’s where the trouble starts. It’s not just Ellie who’s feeling the pangs of impending mommyhood; Sid thinks he’ll make a perfect parent, and so what if his offspring start slavering at flesh and wrinkling their noses at broccoli?

For a film aimed at tots, ‘Ice Age 3’ is surprisingly dark: the dino mom takes her babies and Sid-the-‘floppy green thing’ to a subterranean world where dinosaurs reign supreme, forcing the gang to pass through a scary valley called ‘The Chasm Of Death’.

The rescue mission is headed by a gabby, super-irritating one-eyed weasel called Buck who wants to defeat the very dangerous Rudy the giant T Rex.

While Manny and Diego fight off the advancing dinos, Ellie gives birth, and produces a perfectly peachy baby mammoth called, what else, Peaches. That’s all very cute, but what are little kids to make of conversations revolving around ‘contractions’, and `hormonal imbalances’?The chases (in animation movies, everyone chases everyone else) are fine, though. Just make sure you take the slightly older children, who can enjoy the action and at least some of the words.

TRANSFORMERS:REVENGE OF THE FALLEN

The sequel to the Transformers movie hits theaters later this week. The big question is whether it will deliver in a big way and live up to the hype and anticipation. This sequel really does everything better than the first movie. The fact that the main the characters did not have to be introduced in this sequel seemed to play a big part and the movie pretty much hits the ground running with action from the very beginning.



The action

The good news is that Transformers 2: Revenge of The Fallen has many more robot "battles" than the first movie. The fights are bigger and better. The scenes are slowed down compared to the first movie so it does not look like chunks of scrap metal rolling around. Michael Bay pretty much took the best robot fight scenes from the first movie and did it at least 5 times during the the course of the movie. The fights seem more in line with the slugfests you may remember from the old cartoon. You know, Autobots and Decepticons punching each other out and jumping in the air and blasting each other. Optimus Prime emerges as the biggest badass of this new movie which is a slight departure from the first movie where he seemed much more hesitant to kill, or even fight the Decepticons.


Old to The New

The relationship between Megatron and Starscream that you may remember form the old cartoons is very present in the new movie and is a huge nod to old fans. The sometimes cowardly and always sneaky starscream is present and Megatron is right there kicking his ass to remind him who is boss just like in the old cartoons.


The cars are not all General Motors vehicles this time. There is an Audi among other cars makes.


The pink motorcyle you may remember form the old cartoons is also in the movie. The Constructacons and devastator make a huge appearance and is really well done. Though devastator is not depicted as a standing and walking "robot" those scenes are still done very well. The movie gets into the whole deal regarding the importance of "energon" and goes deeper into the history and origin of the Transformers. Energon cubes were very important in the old cartoons and it was nice to see that in this movie.





THE PLOT:

The film starts off relatively modestly with a scene from about 20,000 BC where cavemen and primitive Transformers battle it out to the tune of an Optimus Prime voiceover about how our two races have a history. Then it cuts to present day China, where the Autobots and the US military are rounding up and hunting down Decepticons. Cue massive explosions, robot-on-robot battles and other special effects eye-candy. This is where the film excels: the special effects do look magnificent – you believe every moment of the robots transforming and battling it out on the streets of Shanghai.

So far so good. We move from Shanghai to Shia LaBeouf and his move to college, and the plot starts moving forwards. There are some nice comedic moments, some Megan Fox skin, some Isabel Lucas skin and then BAM! Isabel Lucas is a Transformer! A hot, college student Transformer! Because Transformers can now transform metal into skin.

The film moves on with some more explosions, battles, Transformers, Megan Fox and explosions. I’m not going to spell it all out for you here. Instead we’re going to skip forward to near the end of the movie where Bay decides to throw in a (figurative) nuked fridge. Let’s put it simply: Shia LaBeouf dies, and is then visited by a bunch of Transformer angels who tell him it’s not his time to die and bring him back to life

There are a lot of big battles where lots of stuff blows up and sometimes it’s hard to tell which robot is which, but its pretty exciting stuff, regardless. There are lots of new robots in this movie to love, but my favorite was definitely Wheelie. He was hilarious! He says what he wants and has some serious attitude. Not only that, but he provided the hugest laugh in movie history when he tried to have sex with Megan Fox’s leg.The boyfriend-girlfriend relationship between Megan and Shia is just so well done.

I believe that Shia’s Transformers 2 is just the beginning of what may very well be an endless trilogy.

Verdict

The movie is bigger and more badass than the first. The fight scenes are more plentiful and better because they are longer sequences and you can make out what is happening because they move a bit slower. The Transformers are closer to the old cartoon counterparts in this movie than the first. If you are a fan you must see this movie.But,if you are going to be a person who looks into logics this is definitely not the movie for you cause i would not believe a machine transforming into a human even in my craziest dream.