Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (AKA Ice Age 3)
Dir: Carlos Saldanha, Mike Thurmeier
2009
**
*Warning this film may be hazardous to your child's education. Apart from the (forgivable) historical inaccuracies, the third Ice Age film isn't too bad. It is much better than Ice Age 2 but that's mainly down to the introduction of Simon Pegg's character Buck and of course the continued adventures of Scrat and his quest for the holy Acorn. Personally I don't know why this franchise has continued to a third installment, a Scrat movie would have been more successful at this point and Dreamworks have been particularly lazy in resting on familiarity rather than come up with new ideas.

Ice Age 2: The Meltdown
Dir: Carlos Saldanha
2006
**
Unfortunately, Ice Age 2: The Meltdown is an irritatingly inferior sequel. The original Ice Age was fresh and exciting, the follow up is a cliche-ridden and rather annoying spiral of silly action over decent story. The character development of the first film takes 2 steps back and the relationships and conversations between the characters become quite tedious. One minute they're friends, the next minute they're not friends....continue ad infinitum (ad nauseum). The only redeeming feature is Scrat and his little slap-stick adventures, although there isn't enough of him to save the film.

Ice Age
Dir: Carlos Saldanha, Chris Wedge
2002
***
2002's hit animation Ice Age is a very sweet film and one of the better CGI animations of the time. The idea that a Sabertooth Tiger, a Wooly Mammoth and a sloth find a lost baby and decide to return him to his tribe during the beginnings of the Ice Age is original and interesting and something that kids and parents watching with the kids could both enjoy. I like it because there weren't too many cliques and it wasn't too preachy, something many animations of the time suffered from. The occasional Scrat scenes (involving a Squirrel/Rat/Three stooges creature, obsessed with an acorn) intertwined with the main story were also welcome relief.

Rio 2
Dir: Carlos Saldanha
2014
**
I disliked the first one but compared to the sequel it is a masterpiece. Okay, so I'm not the target audience but your average ten year old would have seen this story-line at least a dozen times in their lifetimes already, it's beyond tiresome. I grew up on two dimensional cartoons that were silly and defied the rules of gravity, physics and reality in general. It's what makes cartoons so appealing in my opinion. This just doesn't work when the animation is so realistic and the message is so preachy. Why can't kids cartoons just be fun, rather than brain-dead with added emotional soul searching. I have to give credit for the wonderful animation but I'll scream if I see another talent show story-line or the typical 'father-in-law' not-good-enough-for-my-daughter yarn again. Let kids have fun, they have all that nonsense to look forward to in adulthood. Can Blue Sky Studios please lighten up and stop trying to be every child's parent/teacher/preacher. Just for one film at least? And make a Scrat film while you're at it damn it!

Rio
Dir: Carlos Saldanha
2011
**
My expectations have been shattered. I'm late to the party on this one but I had heard nothing but good things about Rio and yet after watching it, I have nothing but bad things to say about it. The story is standard at best, in all honesty the message is overused and not just boring anymore, it's become annoying. The voice work is a whose who of irritating too, if there is anything more irritable than Jesse Eisenberg's acting or face, it's his voice. Colour and movement, that's all this film is, it's not funny at all and the animation isn't that great either in my opinion. One really good song aside, it's forgettable.