Ice Age: The Meltdown

It is the sequel to Ice Age (2002) and the second installment in the Ice Age film series. The film was directed by Carlos Saldanha from a screenplay written by Peter Gaulke, Gerry Swallow, and Jim Hecht.

Story by Gaulke and Swallow. Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, and Chris Wedge reprise their roles from the first Ice Age film, with newcomers Seann William Scott, Josh Peck, and Queen Latifah joining the cast. In the film, Manny, Sid, and Diego attempt to escape an impending flood, during which Manny finds love.

The film premiered in Belgium on March 1, 2006, and in the United States on March 31. Despite receiving mixed reviews from critics, it grossed $667 million worldwide, marking it the third highest-grossing film of 2006 and the highest-grossing animated film of 2006. Three more sequels were released: Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs in 2009, Ice Age: Continental Drift in 2012, and Ice Age: Collision Course in 2016.

The trio discovers that the ice wall is actually a dam that is barely holding a reservoir that could flood the valley if it fails. A vulture tells them that there is a boat at the other end of the valley that may save them, but they must reach it in three days. A chunk of ice breaks off from the top of the dam, initiating their immediate evacuation.

Manny is also struggling with the thought of possibly being the last mammoth alive and Diego is revealed to suffer from severe aquaphobia due to his inability to swim.

Meanwhile, Cretaceous, an ichthyosaur and Maelstrom, a pliosaur—both frozen since the Mesozoic era—escape due to melting ice and seek to eat all the mammals they can during the flood. On their journey to the boat, the trio meet Ellie, a mammoth who believes she is an opossum, and Crash and Eddie, two mischievous opossums whom Ellie believes to be her brothers.

Sid invites them to join their journey to the boat, and Ellie accepts. After a dangerous encounter with Cretaceous and Maelstrom while crossing a pond, Sid tries to teach Diego how to swim, while Ellie realizes that she is a mammoth. Manny begins to fall in love with her, but denies his feelings at first because he feels like he is replacing his deceased wife and child.

Despite this bonding moment with Manny, she distances herself from him when he suggests “saving their species”. Ellie and Manny ultimately reconcile when they must co-operate to save the group when the ground cracks under their feet. Ellie begins to reciprocate Manny’s feelings afterwards.

The herd takes a break for the night, and while the others are asleep, Sid is kidnapped by a tribe of mini-sloths who believe him to be the God of Fire and that sacrificing him by tossing him into a volcano is the only way to stop the flood; Sid narrowly escapes and reunites with the others as they wake up.

After being harassed by vultures, the group finds the boat behind a field of hot geysers. Manny, Sid, and Diego separate from Ellie, Crash, and Eddie when the two mammoths argue about which route is safest.

Just as Manny, Sid, and Diego bypass the geysers, the ice dam fails, unleashing a flood upon the valley. Ellie, Crash, and Eddie, who took the safer yet longer way, are trapped inside a cave due to falling rocks. Crash and Eddie escape through a small hole and warn Manny, who rushes back to save Ellie. Crash and Eddie are taken by the current; Sid tries to save them, but is knocked unconscious on an ice block.

Diego overcomes his fear of water to save Sid and the possums. Cretaceous and Maelstorm ambush Manny underwater, but he tricks them into dislodging a boulder, killing them and freeing Ellie at the same time. Manny and Ellie reunite with the others atop a boulder, but the water is still rising. Meanwhile, Scrat, after a series of misadventures to get back his acorn, climbs the adjacent glacial wall beside them and inadvertently creates a long crack when he punctures the ice.

The crack widens into a gigantic fissure which splits open the wall and drains the floodwaters, saving everyone; in the process, Scrat falls within the fissure and is washed away.

Shortly after, Sid encounters the mini-sloth tribe again. Their leader suggests that Sid should join them, thinking he is the one that stopped the flood, but Diego refuses to let Sid go, saying that he is a vital part of their group. A group of mammoths later appear from the fissure, proving to everyone that mammoths are not really extinct.

Manny initially lets Ellie go with the mammoth herd, but after some encouragement from Sid and Diego to move on from his past, he catches up to her, expressing his desire to stay with her. Manny, Sid, Diego, Ellie, Crash, and Eddie then venture out of the valley.

After falling into the fissure and nearly drowning, Scrat has a near death experience, entering a heaven full of acorns. Suddenly, he finds himself being “sucked back” just as he is about to reach a gigantic acorn. Scrat then discovers that he has been resuscitated by Sid. Scrat is enraged, believing that Sid stole his acorn, and proceeds to viciously attack him.