Ice Age: Continental Drift

Ice Age: Continental Drift, also known internationally as Ice Age 4: Continental Drift or simply as Ice Age 4, is a 2012 American 3D computer-animated comedy adventure film directed by Steve Martino and Mike Thurmeier. It was written by Jason Fuchs and Michael Berg, and features the voices of Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, Wanda Sykes, Queen Latifah and Jennifer Lopez.

It is the fourth installment of the Ice Age series, produced by Blue Sky Studios and distributed by 20th Century Fox. It is the first sequel in the series not directed by Carlos Saldanha, and the second Ice Age installment that utilises Digital 3D. It was released in the US on July 13, 2012, three to six years after its predecessors The Meltdown and Dawn of the Dinosaurs, and ten years after the release of the original Ice Age. This was the first Ice Age film to be shot in the 2.39:1 aspect ratio.

Despite receiving mixed reviews from critics, the film became a huge box office success, with a worldwide gross of nearly $875 million.

Plot
Scrat's hunt for acorns is the reason why the Pangaea continent broke up into the continents as we know them today. In the meantime, Manny and his wife Ellie deal with their daughter Peaches who has a crush on a mammoth named Ethan. Peaches' best friend, a mole hog named Louis, also appears to have a crush on her. When Manny catches Peaches hanging with Ethan, Manny starts an argument with her. Peaches runs away after the argument. The breakup of the continent (What happened in the beginning of the movie) separates Manny from his family. Manny gets stuck on a floating piece of ice together with Sid, Diego, and Sid's grandmother Granny. The moving earth plate drives Ellie, Peaches, Crash and Eddie, Louis, Ethan, and all the other animals towards a land bridge, where they hope to reunite with Manny (this was the promise that Manny made).

Meanwhile, Scrat, lost at sea also, finds an acorn-shaped map, which leads to an acorn-island. Scrat decides to follow the map and find the island, but as he begins his journey, he is suddenly captured by a gang of animal pirates on a large ship-shaped iceberg, who are sailing and plundering the oceans. Manny and his friends are captured also by the pirate gang, led by a giant ape named Gutt. Gutt attempts to make the herd walk the plank, but they manage to escape, in the process destroying the pirate ship, and again float on the oceans on a small ice raft. They rescue a female pirate saber-toothed cat Shira, who had been left behind by the pirates. She joins the group, knowing that the pirates will come back for her. The group reaches an island and encounters a group of hyrax (a small, dumb mammal), as well as the pirates, who are building a new ice ship on the same island. The group plans on stealing the ship and use it to get back home. The next morning, as the group is preparing their plan, Shira escapes and rejoins the pirates. The group of Manny and the hyraxes conquer the new ship and they sail away, with Shira, who changed her mind. Gutt is angry and he quickly turns a new iceberg into a ship to chase Manny's gang.

Meanwhile, Peaches has been still hanging with Ethan and a group of teenage mammoths, but after realizing that they don't care about the danger and thinking that being a best friend with a mole hog is ridiculous, she leaves them and returns to Louis. When Ellie, Peaches, Louis, Crash and Eddie reach the land bridge, they find it to be destroyed. Meanwhile, Manny, Sid, Granny and Diego encounter sirens who are imitating the shape of loved ones to attempt to lure the sailors in order to kill and eat them. Fortunately, Manny realizes this and manages to steer the ship away from the sirens. The next morning, Manny, Sid, Diego and Granny finally reach home, but, much to their horror, find out that Gutt and his pirate gang had beaten them to it and captured Ellie and Peaches. Diego also notices that Shira is injured. Manny wants to sacrifice himself to release his family, but Gutt doesn't want that because he wants to kill everybody. Louis, Ethan and the teenage mammoths come to rescue, starting a battle and Shira joins them. Granny's imaginary pet Precious, a whale appears, defeating the pirates. Peaches rescues Manny, but as they are about to escape, Gutt attacks him again. Gutt and Manny start a final fight and Manny manages to defeat him. Manny arrives in time to pick up Ellie and Peaches, who are caught between the moving earth plate and the ocean. After sailing over the ocean, the group finds a new place to live. Manny and Peaches embraced, Manny finally admits that Sid is not the screw-up after all, but a hero, Shira joins the herd and becomes Diego's girlfriend.

The film ends with Scrat finally reaching the island on the map, Scratlantis a floating city filled with other “Scrats” and acorns. But because of his nut obsession, Scrat grabs many nuts as he can. Suddenly he sees a giant acorn. He tries to that one but it’s blocking a hole. He grabs it which causes the city to sink to the bottom of the ocean, leaving Scrat in the middle of a newly-created land-a desert.

Cast

 * Ray Romano as Manny
 * John Leguizamo as Sid
 * Denis Leary as Diego
 * Queen Latifah as Ellie
 * Seann William Scott and Josh Peck as Crash and Eddie
 * Chris Wedge as Scrat
 * Keke Palmer as Peaches, Manny and Ellie's teenage daughter
 * Jennifer Lopez as Shira, a saber-toothed cat (Smilodon), Diego's love interest and part of Gutt's crew.
 * Peter Dinklage as Captain Gutt, a prehistoric ape (Gigantopithecus)
 * Wanda Sykes as Granny, Sid's 80-year-old grandmother
 * Josh Gad as Louis, a molehog and Peaches' best friend
 * Drake as Ethan, a woolly mammoth Peaches has a crush on
 * Aziz Ansari as Squint, a prehistoric rabbit (Palaeolagus) and part of Gutt's crew
 * Nicki Minaj as Steffie, a woolly mammoth


 * Ester Dean as Sloth siren/Captain Gutt's siren
 * Rebel Wilson as Raz, an Australian prehistoric kangaroo (Procoptodon) that is part of Gutt's crew
 * Joy Behar as Eunice, Sid's mother
 * Nick Frost as Flynn, a 4000 pound English elephant seal that is part of Gutt's crew
 * Heather Morris as Katie, a woolly mammoth
 * Ally Romano as Meghan, a woolly mammoth
 * Alan Tudyk as Milton, Sid's father / Fabio sloth
 * Kunal Nayyar as Gupta, a Bengali Badger (Chamitataxus) and part of Gutt's crew and used as the ship's imperial flag
 * Alain Chabat as Silas, a Blue-footed Booby from the south of France that is part of Gutt's crew
 * Eddie "Piolín" Sotelo as Fungus, Sid's uncle
 * Ben Gleib as Marshall, Sid's brother

Additional voices

 * Christopher Campbell as Creature siren / Various
 * George Jacobs as Beaver
 * Simon Pegg as Buck (cameo)
 * Jason Fricchione as Dumb mammoth / Various / Crab / Announcer
 * Patrick Stewart as Ariscratle, a sabre-toothed squirrel who is the leader of Scratlantis
 * Karen Disher as Scratte (appears as a siren)

Non-speaking characters

 * Dobson (Also known as Boris), an American prehistoric Wild Boar (Metridiochoerus) that is part of Gutt's crew
 * Precious, Granny's "imaginary" pet Giant whale

Production
The first details of the sequel were announced on January 10, 2010, when The New York Times reported that Blue Sky was working on a fourth film and was in negotiations with the voice cast. Fox later confirmed on May 5, 2010, that Ice Age: Continental Drift would be released on July 13, 2012.

Release
Ice Age: Continental Drift had its premiere on June 20, 2012, at the CineEurope film distributors' trade fair in Barcelona. It publicly premiered on June 27, 2012, in Belgium, Egypt, France, Switzerland, and Trinidad, and was released on July 13, 2012, in the USA. The film is accompanied by the short animated film The Longest Daycare featuring Maggie Simpson.

Marketing
As a promotion for Ice Age: Continental Drift, Fox released two 3-minute short segments from the film, titled Scrat's Continental Crack-up and Scrat's Continental Crack-up: Part 2. The first part premiered as a theatrical release attached to Gulliver's Travels in 2010, and it was released on-line on January 6, 2011, on iTunes Movie Trailers. The second part was released on November 16, 2011, on iTunes, and debuted in theatres with Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked. The first part shows how the Scrat's actions lead to split of the continents, while in the second part, Scrat's underwater pursuit of acorns leads him to a pirate ship.

The film was featured on Tommy Baldwin Racing's #10 car driven by Tomy Drissi for the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Toyota/Save Mart 350 held on June 24, 2012.

Home media
Ice Age: Continental Drift was released on DVD, Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D, and Double DVD Pack on October 23, 2012.

Critical response
Ice Age: Continental Drift has received generally mixed reviews from critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 37% of critics have given the film positive reviews, with a rating average of 5.1/10 based on 128 reviews. The consensus statement reads, "Continental Drift 3D has moments of charm and witty slapstick, but it often seems content to recycle ideas from the previous films." Another review aggregator, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, calculated a score of 49 based on 29 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews."

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two stars out of four, calling the film: "Watching this film was a cheerless exercise for me. The characters are manic and idiotic, the dialogue is rat-a-tat chatter, the action is entirely at the service of the 3-D, and the movie depends on bright colors, lots of noise and a few songs in between the whiplash moments." Megan Lehmann of The Hollywood Reporter said: "It's familiar, drawn-out shtick, and the humor lacks the subtlety of the first and best Ice Age, but there are some visually inventive high points." Simon Brew, writing for Den of Geek, gave a very positive four-star review, saying that "not only is Ice Age 4 arguably the best in the franchise yet, it's also, a little surprisingly perhaps (given that it's a fourth movie in a franchise, turned around on a strict cycle), turned out to be thoroughly, thoroughly entertaining family blockbuster."

Box office
Ice Age: Continental Drift has earned $160,965,655 in North America, and $714,026,763 in other countries, for a worldwide total of $874,992,418. Its worldwide opening weekend totaled $126.9 million. Worldwide, it is the 29th highest-grossing film, the fourth highest-grossing film of 2012 (behind The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, and Skyfall), and the second highest-grossing film in the series. Overall, it is the 6th highest-grossing animated film.

In North America, the film earned $16.7 million on its opening day, and $46.6 million on its opening weekend; it was higher than the openings of Dawn of the Dinosaurs ($41.7 million), and the original Ice Age ($46.3 million), but was far behind the opening weekend of The Meltdown ($68 million). In total earnings, it is the lowest-grossing Ice Age film in these regions.

Outside North America, it is the eighth highest-grossing film, the second highest-grossing 2012 film, the second highest-grossing Fox film, and the highest-grossing animated film. Ice Age 4 had a two-day (Wednesday-Thursday) opening of $11 million from 12 markets. On its opening weekend (through Sunday), it earned first place with $80.3 million from 34 markets, opening #1 in all of them. The film set an opening-day record in Nicaragua and a Thursday-opening record in Guatemala. In Peru, it earned the second highest-grossing opening day and the highest for an animated film. It also set opening-day records for an animated film in Russia and in Sweden and achieved the second highest-grossing opening day for an animated film in France ($4.5 million), Colombia, Argentina and Chile. The film set opening-weekend records for any film in Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Central America and Chile, and opening-weekend records for an animated film in Norway, Sweden, Ecuador and Bolivia. Its largest opening weekends were recorded in Russia and the CIS ($16.9 million), China ($15.7 million), and France and the Maghreb region ($12.8 million). It is the second highest-grossing film in Latin America with at least $181 million, only behind Marvel's The Avengers.

Soundtrack
Ice Age: Continental Drift is the soundtrack of the film scored by John Powell and was released on July 10, 2012.

Featured in the film was "Chasing the Sun", performed by The Wanted the film's first theme song, and the second theme song We Are written by Ester Dean, performed by: Queen Latifah, Jennifer Lopez, Keke Palmer, Nicki Minaj, Drake, Heather Morris, and Ester Dean, herself. Both songs play during the credits and are not available in the soundtrack.

In addition to the original score by John Powell, the film also features Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Powell explained his decision: "At the beginning of the film, the creation of the geographical world as we know it seemed just such an immense idea to musically convey, that I gave up entirely and used Beethoven's Ninth Symphony instead. With a bit of obscenely crass re-orchestration and blatantly cheap arranging tricks normally associated with strippers, we got it to fit the action perfectly. But the cost that I must now bear is having to live forever in hiding, since the "Beethoven Society" issued a "fatwa" on me."

Video games
Ice Age Village is a mobile video game, developed by Gameloft, and was released on April 5, 2012 to iPhone, iPad and various Android devices.

Ice Age: Continental Drift – Arctic Games, a video game based on the film, published by Activision Publishing, and developed by Behaviour Interactive, was released on July 10, 2012, on Wii, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo DS, and Kinect for Xbox 360.

Possible sequel
John Leguizamo, the voice of Sid, said of the fifth installment in the Ice Age franchise: "It sounds like they’re working on something. So hopefully the answer is YES, but I cannot say for sure."