well, at three and a half (ish), we had an idea that James might be ready for a visit to the "big cinema", as he calls it. and what better opportunity for him to go and watch a movie on the big screen than the release of Ice Age 3?
James had been excited the whole week about going, and indeed on the morning of our visit he was positively bouncing!
when we got to the cinema, the rather impressive posters and displays on show for the film did nothing to curb his enthusiasm!
sorry again for the poor quality pics, my cellphone is supposed to be rather good at taking them; it seems to be forever selective as to when it does wish to show how good it is at taking them!
anyway, it was all going rather well until we got into the cinema itself. he was rather intimidated by the size of the screen (i kind of didn't expect it to be on in the biggest theatre still as it had been out for two weeks) and was reluctant to be there as a consequence. oh dear.
when the trailers started, commencing with an ace one for some class looking film featuring a quack squadron of guinea pigs, the sound was also a bit too loud for James. a scary big cinema screen and high volume meant that he wanted to leave, and thus of course that's what we were going to do, then.
we did, however, end up staying and watching the film! i cannot praise the staff of Nu Metro at Brightwater Common enough for their spectacular efforts in accommodating us. seeing that we were leaving before the trailers had even finished, they were happy to either refund us or, when they learned of the problem, turn the sound down. in respect of the latter, a nice gesture, but i wouldn't have wished to have inconvenience everyone else just for us, plus the louder the sound in the cinema the less chance of idiots having conversations during the film on their phone - if you are that important on a Saturday lunch time, do not go to the cinema.
a happy solution was found when it was clocked that James was, strangely, very happy to stand in the doorway and watch the film. the staff brought a big chair or bench thing along for James and Michele to sit and watch the film from that vantage point on, whereas i went and sat in our seats again! result!
as for the film itself, well, tricky to give a fair review, as for much of the film my mind was more concerned about how Michele & James were getting on. as no ushers came to tap me on the shoulder i could more or less relax and enjoy it, i guess, but would like to see it again at some point. no doubt the DVD will be out in time for Christmas!
what i can say about it is that there are some riotously funny one-off moments in the film, as there were in the first two, but it seems that the film is rather built around them than they just crop up within the story, a disappointing opposite of the case from the first two.
with glaring frequency, too, it seems that some of the lead cast have rather just phoned in a very pedestrian dialogue delivery for their characters. all too often there's a sense of the likes of the great Denis Leary just going through the motions with the words. ho hum.
an outright winner, though, would easily be the wonderful animated dinosaurs - easily the best seen on screen since the magic of Jurassic Park. they are well drawn / generated and a wonder to watch. perhaps this is the intention anyway, but methinks the guys who made Ice Age should leave the wonders of mammoths and sloths alone for the next project and just do one of the dino world.
cartoon characters having babies is always an easy winner with animated sequels (refer Shrek The Third and imminent Shrek Goes Fourth), and the makers of Ice Age 3 have a clear appreciation for this. i would not wish to go spoiler heavy or even spoiler light for you, but needless to say we are confronted with as many new "baby" characters as they could possibly pop into an hour and twenty minutes. no bad thing, really!
i appreciate that the review here hasn't said a great deal of the "plot" as such. well, as indicated above, it's a rather contrived and formulatic one, put together as an excuse for some fun. no bad thing at all, really - any review that focuses on that rather than the fun is to be read with caution anyway! that said, with no character definition or development whatsoever, if you haven't seen the first two then you need to steer clear of this!
fortunately, it has to be said, we are all too familiar with the first two, since James has had us watch them, well, "more than once", shall we say. i dare say that when the DVD lands of this one we shall also get to see this mostly fine film again and again too!
having slept on the matter, James informed us this morning that he would "like to try the big cinema" again. well, we shall see - the next time a good looking film comes up (and that one with the guinea pigs does look ace), we'll ask him if he wants to go, wait for it to be on a smaller big screen and head off!!
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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