The day the “Ice Age” premiere was scheduled was off to a terrible start for yours truly. I forgot to collect my change of two hundred rubles at the market, then I painfully cut my finger, then the cat broke another cup, and the meat grinder made it clear that it didn’t like turkey and wouldn’t grind the fillet. While we were struggling, my back went out. On top of all this, the computer froze three times when I tried to open the necessary but conflicting file. The power went out. At one point, it flashed through my mind that someone would never smile again. Oh, what a malicious slander on reality! Life turned out to be so beautiful that it immediately took revenge.
“Ice Age” became funny literally from the first frame. You laugh for half an hour without a pause, and then for another half an hour, then your cheekbones start to hurt, but you still chuckle weakly until the very end. And what to write now? How to surprise the reader? With the fact that for the director Chris Wedge this is only the second directorial work? So what? You can’t hide talent anyway. Or the budget of the film is $60 million, and it has collected $360 million to date? What’s the point of counting money if it’s someone else’s? But the thing is, when you’ve laughed heartily, that is, to the full, you can’t remember anything at all afterwards. This is the main sign of humor. If you repeat or translate, it’s no longer funny.
The Perils of Translation: A Lesson from Jerome K. Jerome
This is a proven fact. Once upon a time in childhood, everyone was dying over some Jerome K. Jerome, and, by the way, “Ice Age” is similar in plot to “Three Men in a Boat, to Say Nothing of the Dog.” A mammoth, a sloth, and a saber-toothed tiger travel together with a human baby, and every little thing is a joke. Even the squirrel with the acorn resembles the notorious can of preserves, which eventually acquired the format of a mocking smile. But as soon as Jerome was once “translated” into another language, filmed in three episodes, even with music and Andrei Mironov, it turned out to be a quiet horror. Just as the squirrel disfigured the planet with the smallest mischief, the slightest glitch in the rhythm left not even a wet spot from “Three Men in a Boat.”
Embracing the Gift: Why “Ice Age” Works
Therefore, maybe we shouldn’t even try to understand such a gift as our American peer Chris Wedge. This in some ways excuses us. Accept it, be grateful. Notice at the same time that computers are triumphing, and we work on them. With computer graphics, you don’t need any whims of stars, bad actors, or good weather. Nothing that spoils the movie from the outside has a place here. There is much more time to do what you want. Want to get back at a grumpy friend? Well, draw a genealogical tree of the heroic sloth in the ice. Besides, everything is very beautiful. There are no problems with falling into the abyss, and the whole entourage, volumes, and perspective are more real every time. This thing is stronger than “Shrek,” although that one, of course, is also funny. But there the humor is more cultural, and here it is natural, like nature.
A Final Thought on Humor and Meat Grinders
If you don’t like this review - yes, we can’t outdo Wedge in humor, there’s no point in trying. On the other hand, someone has never smiled at him either. People are different, and we still need to get along with the meat grinder. They probably don’t have problems with electricity in Hollywood, and every human child wants a chicken cutlet.