Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

It involves some of the best use of 3-D I've seen in an animated feature. It also introduces a masterstroke that essentially allows the series to take place anywhere: There is this land beneath the surface of the earth, you see...

NPR Bob Mondello

Unlike say, "Monsters Vs. Aliens," which would have been nothing at all without its special-effects spectacle, this is a sweet little comedy, both family-friendly and centered on a nontraditional family, and so suitable for pretty much everyone.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

There is much more of an emphasis on action in this nicely crafted, fast-paced sequel, which at its best shares the antic qualities of classic Warner Bros. cartoons.

Variety Joe Leydon

With appreciably greater emphasis on action than its predecessors, and clever use of 3-D trickery to enhance storytelling as well as offer spectacle, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs could prove the third time really is the charm.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The movie settles into a mode of nice, sweet, safe, and -- sorry, I have to say it -- slightly dull family fun.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

If "Up" is the animated equivalent of an ice cream sundae, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is the Popsicle: Neither as rich nor as memorable, but more than welcome on a long, hot summer day.

Empire James Dyer

Long-in-the-tooth characters detract from the usual high-spirited fun and frolics.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

The series kept it going for one more entry, but throws its commitment to the era away with movie number three, a ploy sure to anger Ice Age purists everywhere.

Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall

Not even 3D can save this third entry in the Fox animation franchise about a motley crew of prehistoric creatures.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Hasn't got a lot more to say than it did last time about the necessity of accepting the nontraditional family in extraordinary times, but what it does have going for it are its well-delineated characters.

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub

Will satisfy its young fan base and is bound to make a ton of money. At this point, though, the series is no longer an artistic pursuit; it's a business deal.

Los Angeles Times Betsy Sharkey

A sometimes lively, sometimes listless wilderness adventure that will keep the kids cool and mildly entertained for a little while.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Once fresh, the story is now buried under a hoary coating.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

Couldn't the creative minds at the 20th Century Fox animation studios, hoping to wring a few hundred million dollars more out of their prized family-animation franchise, have come up with something more original?

The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen

Pretty much any sign of creative life gets left out in the cold in Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, the monotonous, strictly by-the-numbers third edition of the wildly lucrative digitally animated franchise.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Never representative of more than mediocrity from a technical or story-based standpoint, the Ice Age series has reached a new nadir with its third entry.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Not bad, not good, Ice Age 3 may be OK enough to do what it was engineered to do, i.e., baby-sit your kid for a while and rake in the dough.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

There is no faulting the big set pieces, which are shot and edited skillfully. But without involving characters to go along with them, those sequences make for awfully empty movie calories.

Boston Globe Janice Page

It's mostly flat, despite being presented in 3-D, and the writing is so unimaginative that at one point a character yells out "yabba dabba doo!"

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

You should have been able to treat this film as a grab-bag and pull out some plums. Instead it goes grabbing after you.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Though there are chases galore and stampeding dinos aplenty, Dawn of the Dinosaurs is a nicely rendered travelogue without storytelling. There is little to bring an audience along for the ride.

Village Voice Ella Taylor

There's no breathing life into a formula that ought to have bowed out gracefully while the going was good.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

There’s also a sense of ineptness in a script that constantly reaches, with only modest success, for amusing things that the mammoths and their friends can do.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

Scrat's annoying ubiquity -- is just one piece of evidence that Dawn of the Dinosaurs has been focus-grouped and is now trying to please its presumed young audience a little more than is healthy.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Every character is like the hyperactive rat-squirrel Scrat, and the audience is bounced around like his elusive acorn.