>For 20th Century Fox, the success of "Ice Age" is a sweet payoff for years of patience in animation. “Anastasia” launched in 1997 with moderate success, but “Titan A.E.” was a major disappointment in mid 2000; studio topper Bill Mechanic ankled and Fox shuttered its Phoenix-based animation studio within a few weeks. With little fanfare, Fox bet its animation future on Blue Sky, the moderate-sized computer animation studio in the sleepy town of White Plains, N.Y., a 40-minute train ride from Manhattan. “Ice Age,” the tale of wisecracking animals nurturing a human baby, is believed to have cost a relatively modest $65 million. As a result of delivering an unqualified hit, Blue Sky has moved into the same league as Pacific Data Images (which created “Antz” and “Shrek”) and Pixar (which created “Toy Story” and its sequel, as well as “A Bug’s Life” and “Monsters, Inc.”)

>"Boasting one of the funniest opening sequences of any animated film ever – in which a nervous squirrel attempts to bury an acorn with earth-shattering results – the simply conceived and gorgeously realised Ice Age (2002) is easily one of the best and most adult-accessible animated adventures this century. While Disney’s mega-budgeted Dinosaur (2000) set the prehistoric scene with an equally inspired prologue, it failed to deliver on its opening promise, instead lapsing into saccharine philosophising by a bunch of bland characters. The first major animated venture from 20th Century Fox since the disastrous failure of Titan A.E. (2000), Ice Age avoids such similar traps by never aspiring to be more than what it actually is: an exquisitely animated kids comedy anchored by the buddy-system ingredients that have become today’s recipe for success – Toy Story (1995), Shrek (2001), Monsters, Inc. (2001), etc"

Always enjoy reading old animation reviews

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