Ice Age 3: Dinosaurusten aika

Ice Age 3 retains the same target audience as its predecessors: children up to 12 years old, who will most appreciate the old-fashioned wacky characters, episodic humour based on funny voice acting and dynamic action, and the depiction of basic family and moral values. What is new, however, is the creative dinosaur setting, which brings a welcome visual boost to the series, and the storyline is fantastic compared to the more verbose previous installments. We witness a totally unsurprising development, but that was never the point in the first place, and secondly we have a damn cool character in the form of the guide Buck, who just steals the film for himself and throws much of the responsibility off the shoulders of the traditionally great Scrat. Given the ambition and the premise, it really couldn't have turned out better, my child self is screaming with pleasure. (18.04.2011)

Laid-back family fun, this time with dinosaurs, that retains its quality. And yet again, thanks to Powell, we get quality background music. The third dimension is fine, but as a person who already has one layer of glass over his eyes, having to combine them with 3D glasses wasn’t all that welcome. My nose suffered considerably (two pairs of glasses are just overload), but at least it was experience for me and now my preparations for going to see Avatar are going ahead according to plan. Point no. 1: put in contact lenses, leave glasses at home. (10.08.2009)

Childishly infantile fun, which isn't really original, but unlike the previous film, it entertains solidly. There are many things that can be criticized about this film, but it’s only done by those who don’t see that there are cubs running around and that awareness of family relations is being addressed. Thumbs up for Pegg's Buck. (09.08.2009)

Kids must be jumping for joy; I’m happy for them. The creators have carried on with never-ending falling and chase scenes. But I didn’t expect anything different. They’ve earned a fortune on it, I’m happy for them. But it’s over the line if you leave the humor out of Scratch’s escapades; you’d better not ask me what I would do to the authors for it. The only positive side of the third Ice Age is Pegg’s Buck who seems like he came out of a completely different animated movie. An animated with a slightly more mature character which I would enjoy maybe more than first-graders. Can’t have those little beggars hogging every single animated movie for themselves, now, can we? (28.09.2009)

The recipe behind the success of this series was never to go deep like Pixar movies, but to present the youngest viewers with an adventure full of episodic humor and funny animals. This instalment sticks to this recipe: the exotic dinosaur environment provides ample space for a load of rope-climbing, jumping and flying action, while the dinosaurs can be both cute (Tyrannosaurus cubs) and scary (Velociraptors, Spinosaurus) and, above all, they are filmed with familiar Spielberg-like optics (the only thing that’s missing when the big T- Rex lets out the final shriek is a billboard spelling out “When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth”). Add the pirate Jack “Buck” Sparrow as our protagonists’ guide through the dinosaur world... what more can you offer to the child viewers of today? (30.06.2009)