Ice Age

Release Date: March 15, 2002

Watch Date: February 15, 2025

“During the ice age, a wooly mammoth loner with a tragic past joins a wisecracking sloth and a scheming saber-toothed tiger on a perilous journey to reunite a boy with his hunter father.”

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   Growing up, this was one of my dad’s favorite animated movies, which is saying something because my father doesn’t really see the value in an animated movie. I mean, he’ll watch them, but they will never be his first choice, and honestly I think my brother and I growing up was a very exciting prospect for him because Disney movies were a thing of the past, at least on his tv, I can’t promise my brother or myself ever grew out of them (I mean clearly I didn’t).

   So when our daughter randomly located a VHS copy of this film somewhere in our house and decided it was her life’s goal to watch this film, I was kind of surprised – because while I have kept most of my VHS collection, they’re securely boxed up and I don’t know where she would have found this – and also extremely pleased because I haven’t watched this movie in years and it brings back so many good memories.

   Now, it does turn out that the kids had watched the Christmas special starring these characters, which I didn’t even know existed, so they did have a lot of questions about why characters that hadn’t been introduced into the franchise yet weren’t in the movie we were watching, so we have had to commit to watching the rest of the films – and let’s be frank, this series has incredibly diminishing returns – but it was still a fun experience.

   Does the animation look as good as it did when I first watched it? Nope. Not at all. I don’t care. Do the human characters that once looked very realistic now look like weird blocky blobs made of playdough? Yep. I don’t care. Because this movie has heart, these characters have heart. There’s a reason that so many people toughed out what ended up being like five movies for these characters. Because they’re relatable. They’re charming. And they’re easily loveable.

   So I’m kind of looking forward to reexperiencing this franchise with our children. And possibly forcing my father to reexperience it as well. Because why not recreate multiple childhood experiences at once?