Ice Age: Continental Drift - 2 smiles

The fourth installment of the Ice Age movies featuring computer-generated prehistoric animals is lifeless and derivative. You would think that to keep this franchise going the filmmakers would want a more interesting story, but instead, they add a few new voices and merely modify the same old story. Maybe they figure children won’t care. Returning are Ray Romano as Manny, the wooly mammoth and his mate, Ellie (Queen Latifah). They are parents of rebellious teen Peaches (Keke Palmer). Also back is Sid, the bumbling sloth (John Leguizamo) and Diego, the sleek saber-toothed tiger (Denis Leary). The new voices include hip-hop stars Drake as a cool mammoth Peaches has a crush on and Nicki Minaj as one of Peaches’ airhead friends. Jennifer Lopez has an uninteresting role as Shira, a tiger who falls for Diego, but Wanda Sykes is mildly amusing as Sid’s grandmother. Peter Dinklage, as the monkey pirate captain, gives it his all, but his voice isn’t that interesting so he adds very little to the character or story.

Scrat, the squirrel-rat, focused on chasing the acorn, triggers a continental divide that spurs this adventure. From there, the story adds too many characters with an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink plot that drags in the birth of the continents, pirates, allusions to The Odyssey and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a silly chipmunk army and some Beethoven symphonies on the soundtrack. “Ice Age: Continental Drift” has a few chuckles, but for the most part, it’s not much fun. 7/20/12