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Ice Age: Continental Drift (also known as Ice Age 4 and Ice Age 4: Continental Drift) is a 2012 American 3D computer animated comedy adventure film and the seventh feature film released by Blue Sky Studios and the fourth installment of the Ice Age franchise. The sequel was announced on May 5, 2010 and was released in theatres and 3D on July 6, 2012, ten years after the original film. It was the second Ice Age installment that used digital 3D, after Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.

The movie was made by Blue Sky Studios and it was distributed by 20th Century Fox.

Despite receiving mixed reviews from film critics, audiences liked the film (despite criticizing it for being inferior to the first three movies and for it having some useful characters) and become a blockbuster success, grossing $877 million worldwide against it's $95 million budget.

Synopsis[]

One of the most beloved trios of animation history – Ice Age's Manny, Diego, and Sid – embark upon their greatest adventure after cataclysm sets an entire continent adrift. Separated from the rest of the herd, they use an iceberg as a makeshift ship, which launches them on an epic seafaring quest. Manny and the gang are challenged like never before to become heroes and do the impossible, as they encounter exotic sea creatures, explore a brave new world, and battle ruthless pirates. And Scrat's reunion with his curséd nut catapults him to places no prehistoric squirrel has gone before.

Plot[]

The film begins with Scrat up to his usual antics, trying to find a place for his acorn. After almost causing another crack, he quickly removes the acorn and covers the hole. However, as he touches the ice with the tip of the acorn, a giant split occurs in the earth, and Scrat falls all the way down to the earth's core. All of his movements cause other parts of the earth to split, forming other continents. It is then that he is relaunched to the surface of the earth and falls onto a block of ice and is once again separated from his acorn.

We shift to the herd, meeting Peaches, the teenage daughter of Manny and Ellie. She is hanging out with Louis, a molehog. Louis is worried about Manny finding them, which he does. It's already clear how overprotective he is of his daughter, much to her annoyance. She is attempting to find the popular crowd of mammoths, along with her crush, Ethan.

Meanwhile, Diego notices the rumbling in the earth and lets out a roar that stops it. He feels proud until a huge log knocks into him, carrying a family of sloths. Right before they hit the other animals, Diego stops them. Sid runs in, and he discovers it is his family. They appear happy to see him, but as soon as they leave his Granny with him, they ditch both of them, much to the disappointment of Sid.

Peaches and Louis find the other mammoths partying. She asks Louis how she looks, and it's obvious he has a crush on her, but she has him friend-zoned. They are discovered by Crash and Eddie, who blow their cover as they were sent by Manny to spy on her. Peaches angrily wanders off and accidentally slides down to the party, crashing into Ethan. Manny drops in and embarrasses her in front of everyone by grounding her. As she storms off, they argue, and she goes as far as to saying that she wishes Manny wasn't her dad. Ellie hears this and tries to assure him Peaches is just angry, but at that moment, the earth splits once again. Manny tries to hold onto Ellie, but they become separated. He tries to jump for them, but Diego pushes him back, telling him that he wouldn't have made it (he really wasn't going to make the jump). As they and Sid hit the ocean, Manny calls out to Ellie, promising to find her and Peaches again. Peaches becomes guilt-ridden, fearing the last thing she said to her dad was something hateful. Ellie then gathers the other animals away from the large land mass that is crushing the rest of the land. They plan to meet Manny at a land bridge to reunite.

As they continue floating, they head into a storm. A giant crab appears on their block of ice and tries to attack, but a huge tornado comes and launches the trio above the clouds where they see a rainbow, but they fall back into the ocean.

Back to Scrat, still floating on his piece of ice until he reaches a tiny island. He is creeped out when he sees a skeleton resembling him, but notices it is pointing to something. He looks underwater to find an acorn, then sinks down to the bottom of the ocean, nearly losing all the air in his body. He is disappointed to see its only half an acorn, but also a map leading to a giant acorn. As he happily prances along, a hook snags into the map and pulls Scrat to the surface, where he hits a giant iceberg resembling a pirate ship.

The herd, meanwhile, is still stranded. They discover Granny has been sleeping in a tree throughout the whole storm. The trio is already annoyed by her behavior and repulsed as she takes a bath in the ocean, and her filth kills a bunch of fishes and a shark. Suddenly, the trio spot a bird as it flies by them, and then back to the giant ice ship. The bird, Silas, tells a large ape about the herd, including Manny. The captain seems pleased.

The giant ice ship finds the trio. Captain Gutt initially introduces himself properly, until he attempts to capture the animals. Manny is hit by a huge block of ice and goes unconscious.

He wakes up to discover they have all been captured. We meet the rest of Gutt's crew - Squint, a fierce and hot-headed rabbit; Flynn, a gleefully dim-witted elephant seal; Raz, a kangaroo; Boris, a boar; and Gupta, a badger who serves as the ship's flag. They perform a sea shanty in Gutt's honor, as he proposes that Manny join his crew, which he refuses. They start to make Sid and Granny walk the plank, but Diego has Manny push him so he can free them, and they fight the crew. Manny breaks the ship, and they escape the pirates on another block of ice. They rescue Shira, who is reluctant to be saved, but goes along anyway.

Back on land, Ellie and Peaches are leading the rest of the animals away as the land mass draws closer. They stop to rest for the night, as they are all exhausted. Peaches runs into Ethan, who invites her to hang out with his crew, but to ditch Louis. She accepts, then falls asleep watching him as Ellie hangs in the tree above her.

On the block of ice, Sid wonders to Granny why their family ditched them, and she says it's because they think the two of them are screwups. This is further demonstrated as Granny finds a clam with Scrat inside, whom she believes to be a rat, knocking him out with her cane, and then having the clam close on Sid's hand, which he uses to knock another chunk off the ice. At the same time, Diego and Shira are arguing, until Manny points out that they hit land. Shira starts running away until Diego catches her. That's when they spot Gutt and his crew attempting to make a new ship using hyraxes as their slaves. Diego points them out to the others, but Shira snarks that they cannot take the crew on and survive. Sid enlists the aide of the hyraxes to take the crew down, and they agree.

Overnight, Diego tries to give Shira water, which she refuses at first as she hides in a tree, but drinks anyway. Diego tries to sympathize with her because they both left their crew of killers, but she is un-amused, and insistent on going back to the crew. but she tells him that they can't take on Gutt and his crew so easily, but Diego thinks they can.

In the morning, Shira attempts to rejoin with Gutt's crew, but when she tells Gutt that she couldn't take Manny and Diego down, he berates her as being a disappointment, thereby enlisting Squint as his new first mate. Suddenly, the hyraxes begin to attack with Manny close behind. As Squint tries to cut Manny up, they learn it was a distraction, and the heroes are stealing the new ship. They manage to get on, but Shira, despite whatever Diego would say, stays behind to keep Gutt from taking them down. The heroes escape, but Gutt, using his strength, manages to create an even bigger ship from a colossal block of ice.

Meanwhile, Crash and Eddie play around as the landmass keeps coming closer. Louis asks how they can be so calm as death approaches, but they admit they're too stupid to care. He goes looking for Peaches, who has joined Ethan and his mammoth girlfriends. They come off as snobby and ask Peaches why she's friends with Louis. She says they aren't friends, which he overhears, breaking his heart. Suddenly, the landmass nearly traps them in the cave they're wandering in, but they make it out soon. Peaches leave them as they don't appear concerned for their safety, and after Ethan makes a insulting remark over her being ''half-possum''. When she rejoins Ellie, they discover the land bridge is gone, and they worriedly wonder how they'll find Manny.

Manny, Diego, Sid, and Granny continue sailing overnight. randomly Diego starts feeling uneasy and starts to see delusions, Sid and Granny also see their own delusions of a beautiful sloth, and a handsome sloth also, while Manny also sees Ellie and Peaches calling for him. When Ellie tells Manny he was right, he snaps out of it, knowing she'd never admit that. They morph into their real forms as sirens, little ugly creatures who attempt to attack and eat them. Manny tries to warn the others, though they're still entranced. Manny manages to steer them to safety, though.

Scrat ends up swimming toward the sirens, one of which takes the form of Scratte, but he ignores it until the siren transforms into an acorn, and he accidentally kills it by trying to bury it. Then the deceased siren's buddies start attacking him as he runs away.

The following morning, the herd reaches land, while Granny drops fruit for Precious, her "imaginary" pet. When they hit land, they see the land bridge is broken, and Manny becomes hopeless. However, he sees Peaches calling out for him, only to discover Gutt has taken her and Ellie hostage. Manny tries to surrender himself, but Gutt still plans to harm his family. That's when Louis shows up and challenges Gutt and his crew. They laugh at him as the other animals watch, but he manages to hit Gutt's foot with ice, and a battle ensues. The pirates attack while Sid and Shira fight them off. Granny calls for Precious, who turns out to be an enormous whale that scares off the pirates. Precious takes Sid and Granny, and they get the whale to shoot water at Gutt's crew, knocking them all into the ocean.

Another large piece of ice breaks as the landmass hits, pushing Manny and Gutt away. They engage in a fight, with Gutt almost winning, until Manny jumps onto the end of the ice block, catapulting Gutt into the air, as Manny knocks him into a cave. Manny then flies into Precious's mouth with the other animals, now reunited with everyone.

In the cave, Gutt encounters a female of his species telling him to sail the seas with her. He agrees until she is revealed to be a siren, which grabs Gutt and presumably eats him.

The animals are all on the giant block of ice as Precious pushes them to a brand new land where the hyraxes are. This will be their new home. Sid makes Granny a new set of dentures, and Manny allows Peaches and Louis to hang out together on their own. Ethan and his friends, impressed with Louis's bravery, ask to hang out with them, which they allow. Manny also tells Sid that he is not a screw-up, but a hero.

We catch up with Scrat, who has finally found the giant acorn. He comes to the land and discovers Scratlantis, led by Ariscratle. The place appears to be an advanced society of saber-toothed squirrels like Scrat, complete with acorns everywhere. However, Scrat's impulsiveness gets the best of him, and he goes around grabbing every acorn he can, until he reaches an acorn stuck in the ground. Ariscratle pleads with Scrat not to touch it, but he yanks it out, and Scratlantis sinks to the bottom of the ocean, then drying up, leaving Scrat in the desert under the scorching sun. His eyes start burning and he once again screams in frustration.

During the credits, Manny, Sid, Diego, Peaches, Ellie, Shira, Granny, Louis, Ethan, and Steffie sings We Are Family.

Voice cast[]

Soundtrack[]

We Are Family (Cast version) - Jennifer Lopez, Nicki Minaj, Queen Latifah, Drake, Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary and Wanda Sykes

Chasing The Sun - The Wanted

We Are Family (Soundtrack version) - Keke Palmer

Master of the Seas - Peter Dinklage, Aziz Ansari, Jennifer Lopez, Rebel Wilson, Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary

Development[]

The first details of the film were revealed 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 5th, 2010 that Ice Age: Continental Drift would be released on July 13th. Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, Chris Wedge, Queen Latifah, Seann William Scott and Josh Peck were later confirmed to reprise their respective roles from the previous films with Wanda Sykes, Keke Palmer, Peter Dinklage, Jennifer Lopez, Drake and Nicki Minaj announced to join them in 2011.

An early poster of the movie was revealed at the 2010 Licensing International Expo in Las Vegas. On December 19, 2010, 20th Century Fox released the first screenshot of Ice Age: Continental Drift.

Steve Martino and Mike Thurmeier were assumed as the directors and John Powell once again composed the musical score. The visual effects are have been done by Dan Cayer, who's the composting supervisor of Blue Sky Studios. Lori Forte also returned to produce the movie. Michael Berg came back to write the film with Jason Fuchs that took part of the franchise to co-write the screenplay with Berg.

An official screenshot from the teaser trailer of Ice Age: Continental Drift was released on January 6, 2011, on examiner.com.

The official trailer was released on March 5, 2012.

Trailer[]

Video game[]

Main article: Ice Age: Continental Drift (video game)

There was also a video game based on the movie and was released in July 2012.

Sequel[]

After the release of Ice Age: Continental Drift, John Leguizamo, the voice of Sid, said of the fifth installment in the Ice Age film series: On December 20, 2013, 20th Century Fox has scheduled the film for July 15, 2016, ten years after the release of Ice Age: The Meltdown. It has now delayed by one week. The title is Ice Age: Collision Course. The plot focuses on the Herd reuniting with Buck to stop a deadly asteroid that Scrat accidentally sent to Earth while struggling to command an UFO he found underground.

Trivia[]

  • This is the first Ice Age film to be shot in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio, unlike the first three Ice Age films that were produced in 1.85:1.
  • The second Blue Sky Studios film to be shot in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio, after Rio.
  • This is the first Ice Age film to feature more than one of the species of the franchise's fourth main characters in the same movie.
  • Ice Age: Continental Drift is the fifth Blue Sky Studios film to have non-humans cast, after Robots, Ice Age: The Meltdown, Horton Hears a Who!, and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.
  • Ice Age: Continental Drift is the last film to use the Blue Sky Studios shield logo. Starting with Epic, it will use the current Blue Sky Studios logo with Scrat.
  • John Leguizamo's children had provided the voices of mammal kids. Also, Ray Romano's children had played mammal kid in films.
  • Ice Age: Continental Drift is the third animated sequel to be produced in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, unlike the previous installments which were produced at 1.85:1, after Rugrats Go Wild and Shrek Forever After.

Goofs[]

  • When Scrat is chasing his acorn, it goes behind him, and changes direction, but right before his tail gets caught, he's facing the opposite direction.
  • When the continent breaks and creates Africa, the giraffes are at both of its sides instead of the land that is later supposed to be Africa.
  • After Scrat comes out of the Earth, the countries are shown moving away. A few countries are not shown, such as the British Isles.

Gallery[]

See also[]

References[]

  1. Ice Age 4 Confirmed By Fox - Screenrush.co.uk

External links[]

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