As the fourth installment in the franchise it’s a tad surprising that ‘Ice Age: Continental Drift’ isn’t downright terrible. Having not seen the second or third films (‘Ice Age: The Meltdown’ and ‘Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs’), and with my very vague memory of the first one (it came out ten years ago!), I can’t exactly say how this new film compares to the previous ones. I can say, however, that little kids will enjoy the film for its slapstick and childish humor. Older audience members, though, will probably be bored since the sophistication of better animated films like ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ and the ‘Toy Story’ franchise is nowhere to be found.

Those who follow the ‘Ice Age’ series know the films don’t exactly have any historical context. An ice age that occurs at the wrong point in time and a secret world of dinosaurs below Earth’s crust are just some of the major plot devices of the series. With ‘Continental Drift’, we discover that Pangea split apart because of an acorn – an acorn Scrat, the beloved saber-toothed squirrel, has been pining after throughout the series. The drifting of the continents causes the main characters – Manny the mammoth (voiced by Ray Romano), Sid the sloth (John Leguizamo), and Diego the saber-toothed tiger (Denis Leary) – to be apart from their families. The rest of the film involves their journey back home, as well as encountering some pirates along the way.

The antagonist pirate gang the three leads run into is led by a sociopathic ape named Gutt (Peter Dinklage), and his minions include a white saber-toothed tiger named Shira (Jennifer Lopez), a prehistoric kangaroo named Raz (Rebel Wilson), an elephant seal named Flynn (Nick Frost), a prehistoric badger named Gupta (Kunal Nayyar), and a prehistoric rabbit named Squint (Aziz Ansari).

The supporting characters left on land include Manny’s family, his wife Ellie (Queen Latifah) and daughter Peaches (Keke Palmer), a molehog named Louis (Josh Gad), who is Peaches’ best friend and also secret admirer, a motley crew of other various prehistoric animals, as well as some (teenaged?) mammoths voiced by rappers Drake and Nicki Minaj, and Glee star Heather Morris.

There isn’t much substance to the film other than a nice innocent message about the importance of family, a few humorous moments from Sid’s granny (voiced by Wanda Sykes), and a couple moments of visually creative sequences, like the swashbuckling action and the creepy siren scenes. Scrat’s acorn sub-plot is also fun to watch. Other than this, there’s nothing really memorable about the film (or films). The characters are one-dimensional, the plot is predictable, and there are too many distracting shots that are obviously there to provide 3D impact. Elements of more enjoyable animated films like ‘Finding Nemo’ and ‘A Bug’s Life’ are also found throughout the film. But hey, at least the animation’s great.

One thing I never understood about many animated films is why so many A-list celebrities are chosen to voice characters when there are plenty of talented voice actors out there who make a living from doing just that. Animated films like the ‘Shrek’ series, ‘Kung Fu Panda’ series, and ‘Ice Age’ series feature so many celebrities in roles that aren’t even that important. In fact, the characters in the ‘Kung Fu Panda’ films that are voiced by Jackie Chan, Seth Rogen, David Cross, and Lucy Liu barely have any lines! ‘Ice Age: Continental Drift’ featured so many celebrities in relatively unimportant roles that it was distracting, but I guess some people find it fun to hear their favorite celebrities’ voices in animated form. I must say, however, I did enjoy hearing Nicki Minaj voice a character because she’s such a cartoon character herself.

Two and a half out of four Kents.

Extra Notes:

• I didn’t realize it was Peter Dinklage who was behind the voice of the crazy ape. I was both surprised and excited because Dinklage is awesome, especially in ‘Game of Thrones’. Also, it seemed like Dinklage was the only one in the entire film to actually “change” his voice to fit the character. Every other celebrity used their own regular voices.