Fox animation dives headlong into the computer generated cartoon genre with this funny and original work from Blue Sky Studios. Starring the voice of Ray Romano as the wooly mammoth Manny, Dennis Leary as the sabre toothed tiger, Diego, and John Leguizamo as the sloth, Sid. The film takes place in prehistoric times as these maverick characters go on a quest to return a young human baby to its tribe.

Skrat The Squirrel and his quest to bury his beloved acorn starts the film off with a hilarious sequence that triggers the Ice Age. Animals start to migrate and the human village is attacked by sabre toothed tigers, led by a mean one who wants to seek revenge on the tribe. A mother saves her child but dies after delivering her baby to the main animal characters of the story. Diego is a spy for the other tigers and joins the band as they head off to find the baby's father. Through comical and touching experiences, the tiger slowly changes his attitude and is eventually won over to their side by the small baby and his friends. Part of the appeal to the characters is the excellent character development provided by the story writers. Each of them have their own unique personality provided by the actors voice and the graphic artists, who had to portray emotion in various ways depending on the character. Skrat's actions and movements are reminiscent of Warner classic cartoon characters; he even looks a bit like Wile. E. Coyote and is the one character who doesn't talk. With Ray Romano's wooly mammoth character, much of the emotion had to be demonstrated through eye movements alone, and Dennis Leary's tiger is very shifty eyed.

The beautiful animation from Blue Sky is comparable to Pixar and other animation studio productions of the past few years. Besides extraordinary detail on the main characters, the artists at Blue Sky devoted teams to developing realistic shadowing and landscapes. The rendering of water is incredibly realistic. The only characters that looked a bit unreal were the human characters, who were a bit stiff in movement, appearance and expression. Dolby digital 5.1 sound delivers a powerful punch for viewing on a home theater with excellent separation of channels. The subwoofer of a system will get a good workout when the ice begins to move.

The two disc set has extras on both discs. Disc one has two versions of the film, widescreen and fullscreen. Audio commentary from Director Chris Wedge and Co-Director Carlos Saldanha is an option on disc one. Disc one also contains DVD-ROM arcade games based on the film; Sid Shreds (skiing) and Dodo Ball, and a number of printable items, including a 2003 calendar, a workbook of fun activities, snowflakes, a mobile set, paper doll sheets, a gameboard, and a paper puppet show. The DVD-ROM features work on both a Mac and PC-yeah! Besides these games, there are three other interactive games on side one accessible from your regular DVD player. The inside flap contains a Papa John's Pizza sticker on the reverse of the inside flip disc holder which is the first time I've seen inside advertising directly on a disc jacket. Disc two contains bonus material and making of featurettes with the most memorable being a four minute new short film starring Skrat. It's cute as Skrat turns out once again to be the cause of massive changes while trying to find a place for his acorn. Another excellent short is "Bunny", which gave Blue Sky an Academy Award for best short animated film (with optional director commentary). "Behind The Scenes" is an humorous HBO special with Ray Romano. Sid on Sid has John Leguizamo as the sloth commenting on specific scenes from the film. Six deleted scenes are another bonus feature in English, Spanish or French. These come with director's commentary as an option. There are six brief production shorts, three multiangle animation studies, and very short Skrat promo for the film and Fox. The disc should keep you busy for well over another two hours of fun.

Just in time for the holidays, this two disc set is an incredible value and sure to please young and old alike. It has an entertaining film and has hours of extra features sure to amuse everyone. A must pick up disc for animation lovers.