Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006)
★★½ — Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006)
Released in 2006, Ice Age: The Meltdown is the first sequel to Blue Sky Studios' 2002 hit Ice Age, and it arrived at a time when animated sequels were becoming very much standard business for Hollywood studios. The premise this time shifts from a mammoth migration story to something more apocalyptic in flavour: the ice is melting, the valley the herd calls home is under threat, and Manny, Sid and Diego have to round up every creature in the neighbourhood and make a run for higher ground. It is a reasonably solid hook for a family adventure, and the environmental undertone, whether intentional or not, gave the film a certain topicality when it landed in cinemas. Produced once again by Blue Sky Studios under the 20th Century Fox banner, the film had a wide theatrical release and performed very well commercially, making it one of the bigger animated hits of that year.
Behind the camera, Carlos Saldanha takes sole directing credit here, having co-directed the original alongside Chris Wedge. Saldanha would go on to helm Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, so his attachment to this franchise runs deep. The returning voice cast is a big part of the film's appeal. Ray Romano, John Leguizamo and Denis Leary reprise their roles as Manny, Sid and Diego respectively, and the rapport between the three is comfortable, if perhaps a little too comfortable by this point. Queen Latifah joins the cast as Ellie, a mammoth who believes herself to be a possum, and her presence adds a new dynamic to the group dynamic, even if the character exists largely to give Manny a romantic subplot. Seann William Scott and Josh Peck (as Crash and Eddie, Ellie's possum companions) round out the new additions, pitching their performances squarely at the younger end of the audience. The animation itself is polished but unremarkable by the standards of the mid-2000s, and the prehistoric world the film constructs is colourful and energetic without doing anything especially surprising. And then there is Scrat. The acorn-obsessed sabre-toothed squirrel, voiced by Saldanha himself, continued to be something of a phenomenon in his own right, his wordless slapstick routines functioning almost as short films within the feature.
More mammoths, more sloths, more squirrel-related chaos, but somehow, just a little less magic. The sequel keeps the charm and the gags coming, but it also feels like a step down from the original: a bit messier, a bit looser, and not quite as fresh. It’s still watchable, and my kid loves it, so I’ve sat through it more times than I’d like to admit, but The Meltdown leans a little too hard on repetition and broad humour. The characters are fun, the animation still looks good, and hey, Scrat’s chase for that acorn remains gold. But ultimately it’s more of the same … and in this case, that’s just not quite enough.
For me, that sums it up fairly well. There is genuine warmth here, and I do not begrudge the film its audience, particularly the younger half of it. But when I stack it up against the original or even some of the more ambitious animated films I have covered on here, like Josep or The Hunchback of Notre Dame, it is hard not to feel that The Meltdown is content to coast rather than climb. A perfectly fine rainy Sunday film, then, but not one that lingers. Sometimes more of the same is just more of the same.
Rating: ★★½ | Year: 2006 | Watched: 2025-07-21
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006) on YouTube
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: Amazon Prime Video · Disney Plus · Amazon Prime Video with Ads · ITVX Premium
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
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Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Stream: Disney Plus · fuboTV
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Related on Movies With Macca
More from Carlos Saldanha: Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009)
More with Ray Romano: Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009) · Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012) · Ice Age (2002) · Ice Age: Collision Course (2016)
More from the 2000s: Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005) · Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) · Daredevil (2003) · Apocalypto (2006)
More animation: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Alice in Wonderland (1951) · Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (2024) · Mononoke the Movie: Chapter II - The Ashes of Rage (2025)
More family: Alice in Wonderland (1951) · Wonder (2017) · Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005) · Anastasia (1997)
