The worn-out idea the filmmakers have yet another crack at: Families can be found objects, stitched together from all sorts of misfits who bond to form their own loving little clan.
The main thing that distinguishes this movie from its predecessors is the setting as the gang of prehistoric animals journeys underground to a lost world of dinosaurs.
Once again, the main players are Manny the woolly mammoth (voiced by Ray Romano), his wife, Ellie (Queen Latifah), Diego the saber-toothed tiger (Denis Leary) and Sid the sloth (John Leguizamo). Sibling possums Crash and Eddie (Seann William Scott and Josh Peck) also tag along again.
With Manny and Ellie expecting their first child, Diego strikes back out on his own, sensing he's lost his predator edge. Sid, feeling left out of Manny's family circle, adopts three huge eggs he stumbles on in a cavern, becoming surrogate mother to baby tyrannosaurs whose real mom comes to reclaim them, dragging the sloth back underground with her.
So Manny, Ellie, the possums and eventually Diego join up to rescue poor Sid.
This unlikely extended family gains an interesting new cousin in dementedly lovable Buck (Simon Pegg), a weasel who lost an eye to a ferocious dinosaur and has gone all Ahab in his quest to avenge himself on the beast.
Amid all the other yammering critters, Buck steals the movie, Pegg's lively, looney vocals combining with the character's lithe and limber movements to bring a freshness to his scenes that the rest of the movie lacks.
Even the antics of little Scrat fall flat this time. The rodent whose pursuit of an elusive nut was the highlight of the first movies are tired and strained here as the filmmakers have him alternately fighting and wooing a female counterpart also trying to secure that pesky acorn.
With the gang battling reptiles and Buck hurtling about like Douglas Fairbanks, "Dawn of the Dinosaurs" has a faster pulse than the earlier movies.
What you can say about the images presented by director Carlos Saldanha pretty much holds true for new installments in other computer-animated franchises. It's more detailed, textured and vibrant than the earlier "Ice Age" epochs because the technology and possibilities of computer-generation animation keep getting better.
