Global warming was a hot issue – even in prehistoric times – as the glacial environment of “Ice Age” turned into a waterworld in its sequel. Manny the mammoth, voiced by Ray Romano, and his sidekicks Sid the sloth and Diego the saber-toothed tiger, voiced by John Leguizamo and Denis Leary, respectively, have to leave their basin home before it becomes flooded. Ellie, voiced by Queen Latifah, a fellow mammoth who thinks she is an opossum, joins them. With the “doomsday” flood quickly approaching, the animals have to unite for survival.

Jill Blackledge: The trailer for this, with Scrat once again in pursuit of his elusive acorn, led me to think this sequel might actually live up to the original in humor and heart. However, “Ice Age: The Meltdown” loses the stronger story of the first film. It’s merely an exercise to get from point A to point B with some adventures in the middle about escaping a flood.

Andrew Schmeisser: The story wasn’t as intense as the first one, but it did have some of the charm of the original, with the recurring characters and new takes on the original’s jokes. “Ice Age: The Meltdown” followed on the original’s trail with the subtle themes of teamwork and togetherness, but the movie attempts to provide new stakes for the mammoth and his friends.

JB: The first movie’s story about their journey to deliver the lost infant seemed to have a definite purpose, but that’s because that was the main part of the storyline. Here, the focus of the story shifts to Manny’s relationship with Ellie, and the flood just happens to be coming at the same time.

AS: Laced with a fair amount of sarcasm and quick wit, “Ice Age: The Meltdown” is a good attempt to recreate the original’s wonder and mystique, but falls short because of multiple stories going on at once, with none of them raising the stakes high enough.

JB: I’m torn whether I should be able to recognize specific actors’ voices in animated movies. I recognized Latifah’s voice without knowing she was even in the film, and I think that can be distracting sometimes. However, it is more difficult to act with just the voice because these actors can’t use facial expressions or body language to convey emotion.

AS: I thought Romano, Latifah and Leguizamo delivered very good performances. However, Leary’s performance led me to want the old Diego instead of this one, because in the first “Ice Age,” Leary played Diego with attitude. In this one, Leary is just a part of the herd.

JB: I do think, however, the right actors were chosen to voice these characters. Both Romano and Latifah deliver the right amount of sentimentality and sarcasm to their characters. Leary is biting as the tiger, and Leguizamo’s Sid has the right comic voice to be the brunt of everyone’s jokes.

AS: For the most part, I feel the cast was well-placed. However, I know that one of the previews’ tag lines was about how Jay Leno was going to be lending his voice to the film. I feel that he played a rather unnecessary character and was in the film because he’s Leno. I, unfortunately, felt the same about most of Crash and Eddie’s parts, voiced by Seann William Scott and Josh Peck, the two opossums in the film.

JB: Although the story was lacking, the visuals were much better than the first film. The animals were given more details, such as hair, and the scenery was more complicated. Instead of just having blowing snow, tree leaves moved and water poured down icy cliffs. It was a visually pleasing film to watch.

AS: Simplistic and effective, the visuals for the film were well thought out and surpassed the visuals of the original. With such attention to detail, things such as moving fur and wind blowing over the scenery became dazzling eye candy. The sound was another aspect to the film, as it was carefully overlaid onto the animation. The sound and visual of an ice shelf breaking off was extremely well-done, but didn’t seem to intensify the mood enough.

JB: The story, however, could not be saved by the animation. The first “Ice Age” brought a heart-warming story as the characters came together and interacted with the infant. In “Ice Age: The Meltdown,” the sentimentality, such as Manny’s family being killed by hunters, is traded for stock jokes, less-endearing characters and even a musical number. Although the first film could be enjoyed by a wide range of ages, this sequel will probably delight children more than their guardians.

AS: Although the visuals were stunning and the audio was phenomenal, the characters were used more as the tool, rather than the focus, to sell a mediocre storyline. Interspersed with the misadventures of the prehistoric squirrel, Scrat, “Ice Age: The Meltdown” is a good film for families and children. For the college-aged patrons, however, this film is on the verge of extinction.