2012: Ice Age Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		0.5
Video		3.5
Audio		2.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		2.0

2012: Ice Age Blu-ray Movie Review

Brain freeze.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman July 14, 2014

So...you've declared war on a glacier.

Time for the usual Asylum housecleaning paragraph. 2012: Ice Age is the studio's attempt to "cash in" on movies like 2012 and The Day After Tomorrow, though it's certainly a couple of years and a lot of special effects off course. The title is more like the former and the movie more like the latter; it follows some folks as they try to rescue trapped loved ones in a super-snowy New York, so negative points for originality there. In essence, this is typical Asylum fodder, a movie that meets all of the criteria: poor visual effects, a terrible pace, uninspired acting, and so on and so forth. Fans of the genre or the studio know what to expect, and newcomers should understand that this isn't a big-budget extravaganza but rather a rip-off cobbled together on a microscopic budget and starring talent that doesn't seem to care.

Brrrrr.

Bill Hart (Patrick Labyorteaux) and his son Nelson (Nick Afanasiev) are dropping Bill's daughter Julia (Katie Wilson) off at the airport where she'll catch a flight to New York to continue her education at NYU. The goodbyes are cut short when Bill and Nelson make contact with a remote, icy base where they are told of a massive fracture and eruption. It's strong enough to fracture off a massive glacier and send it hurtling southward, and as fate would have it, New York City falls in its direct path. Bill and Nelson pick up Bill's wife Teri (Julie McCullough) from work and race towards New York in hopes reuniting with and rescuing Julia, who is fighting to survive alongside boyfriend Logan (Kyle Morris).

It takes rare skill to make a movie so...boring. 2012: Ice Age incredibly does almost nothing for an entire ninety minutes. Whereas other films can get away with a similar scenario (see the above-referenced Roland Emmerich titles) and even play through an extended runtime, The Asylum's chilly Disaster film seems to make time almost stop for the duration. Once the quest to save the daughter kicks into motion, the film may as well have been honest and placed her in Dullsville rather than New York. The film fails to find energy even at the "height" of its drama, when the family comes across unsavory characters or battles the (digital) elements. About the only thing that's "fast" about the movie is how it gets out of the gate. There's, fortunately, precious little time wasted between title and the action kicked into gear. There's a few minutes of character introduction and story exposition prior to switching gears to the frozen tundra of North America and the "panic" that ensues with the coming of the glacier.

The film's pacing isn't its only issue. As with many of its other titles, The Asylum inserts music underneath almost every scene in an effort to drum up false tension where none exists, not because the moment doesn't call for it but because neither the actors nor the filmmakers are capable of making a scene that's even the least bit physically frightening or emotionally challenging. While the script isn't so dimwitted as one might expect, it is flat and generic, failing to find much of a core and instead relying on its cast to breathe life into its words. Unfortunately, the performances are dry and lifeless. The actors often come across like they'd feel more peril going through an automatic car wash than an icy cataclysm. There's not one full, rich, or even believable performance in the film, a major hindrance to a movie that's on life support and flatlined by the performances. Expectedly, the picture is littered with poor man's visual effects. Every single effects shot looks fake, which is a problem because it's not just traditional "effects" shots that look bad but everything else too. Unless it's a tight close-up, it feels like every shot in the movie is digital, and it suffers greatly for it.

2012: Ice Age Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

2012: Ice Age, encoded in the older MPEG-2 format, offers a passably good high definition experience. Though there's some light banding in spots and imperfect visual effects shots that are smeary and undefined, the bulk of the film looks quite good. The HD video source reveals crisp and accurate details despite the video's naturally glossy, flat appearance. Faces and clothes are beneficiaries of the HD muscle, showing complex details in close-ups throughout the film. Colors are accurate and satisfying, though much of the film is awash in white and light shades of gray. Black levels and flesh tones never stray too terribly far from normal. Spiky noise and occasional banding are the more bothersome villains here, while aliasing rears its ugly head in a couple of shots. Overall, however, this is a solid offering from The Asylum.

2012: Ice Age Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

2012: Ice Age features a chilly Dolby Digital 5.1 lossless soundtrack. Much like The Asylum's Battle of Los Angeles, the meat is here but the aggression is not. Despite a good sonic flow throughout the stage, including a rather active surround element, there's not much fire here, not much energy to the proceedings. Whether helicopters flying from front to back or jets from side to side, the effects feel timid in delivery and don't add much to the proceedings beyond a shell of a sound. Likewise, blowing winds and other stage-filling elements that are a part of the atmospheric chaos never really do much to turn the listening area into a disaster zone. Dialogue, too, plays well enough but is itself a bit shallow at times. Musical delivery also suffers from the same issues. Overall, a disappointing track in every area.

2012: Ice Age Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

2012: Ice Age contains the usual pair of Asylum extra content.

• Making Of Featurette (1080p, 8:35): Cast and crew briefly delve into all things 2012: Ice Age.
• Bloopers (1080p, 1:26).
• Previews: Additional Asylum titles.

2012: Ice Age Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

2012: Ice Age is a snoozer of a movie but a perfect specimen of all things Asylum. Bad special effects, disinterested acting, remarkably awful pacing, no energy and an effort to mask it with music, and a story that's a direct rip-off of a bigger and better movie. Filmmakers have time and again proven that budget isn't everything, but in an effects-heavy movie it does count for something. 2012: Ice Age was never going to be great, but it's so awful it just screams of "lazy," both on the part of the filmmakers but by those who green-lit the thing in the first place. The Asylum's Blu-ray release of 2012: Ice Age features serviceable video, lifeless audio, and a couple of throwaway supplements. Skip it.