Queen Latifah Page 3

With its fifth feature-length adventure, this franchise continues its preposterous journey at full tilt. As before, it's the zippy writing, lively vocal work and colourful animation that hold the interest. The story is merely a framework on which the cast and crew can hang a series of rapid-fire jokes, pop culture references and nonsensical action sequences. And it's still mindless fun.

After their previous escapades, the expanding herd of prehistoric critters is living a happy life together, thinking about love. Mammoths Manny and Ellis (voiced by Ray Romano and Queen Latifah) are struggling with the idea that their daughter Peaches (Keke Palmer) has fallen for the too-cheerful Julius (Adam Devine). Sid the sloth (John Leguizamo) has just been dumped and feels like he'll never find a partner. And tigers Diego and Shira (Denis Leary and Jennifer Lopez) worry that their violent nature will make them terrible parents. Then suddenly there's a bigger issue to worry about: a giant asteroid is heading for Earth, threatening them with extinction. With the help of nutty weasel Buck (Simon Pegg), they come up with an idea to save the planet. They also discover a magical place called Geotopia, ruled by the groovy Shangri Llama (Jesse Tyler Ferguson).

Yes, the plot is utterly insane, especially as it is driven by the antics of franchise star Scrat, who discovers a flying saucer in the ice, activates it and heads into space, where his acorn-hunting antics trigger all sorts of mayhem back on Earth. But then this series has never had anything to do with science or biology, throwing random animals together (the dinosaurs make another appearance) for comical value while cranking up whatever suspense the writers can think of to add some momentum. They also of course pack scenes with sweet "family values" moments, plus a sideswipe at climate change deniers who refuse to acknowledge the possibility of impending doom.

Continue reading: Ice Age: Collision Course Review

The Cookout is a comedy-drama about a ton of interesting social dynamics: About the potential backlash of instant fame and fortune (and the resulting intra-urban pressure not to succeed), about the endless small stereotypes that white people make about black people (and the endless small stereotypes that black people make about white people), and about the need for people, black or white, to be true to themselves.

Continue reading: The Cookout Review

Scary Movie 3 sticks with the program: mind-bogglingly dumb characters hustle their way through spoofs of the industry's most popular recent films. It's no mistake that the roasted movies -- in this case: Signs, The Ring, and 8 Mile -- all pull in huge money and attract a young audience.

Continue reading: Scary Movie 3 Review

The film's setup is simple. Dre (Taye Diggs) and Sidney (Sanaa Lathan) have been very close friends since childhood, when hip-hop was just coming into its own. Dre is a well-known hip-hop record producer who is unhappy with his job and is about to get married. Sidney is a magazine editor who is working on a book about the origins of hip-hop and cannot find the right man to fit her groove. She is of course secretly in love with Dre because he is the only man who can connect with her and her music, and Dre is secretly in love with Sidney because she is the only woman who will support his dreams. Both Dre and Sidney have problems with the other's initial choice of spouse (Nicole Ari Parker and Boris Kodjoe).

Continue reading: Brown Sugar Review

Bucking the odds, MGM's Beauty Shop spins off from the successful Barbershop comedies, taking Queen Latifah's sassy stylist Gina Norris from the second installment and setting her up in a potential franchise all her own.

Continue reading: Beauty Shop Review

Now, meet Andy Washburn (Jimmy Fallon), a bumbling misfit of a New York City police officer. He screws up nearly every case his lieutenant -- who also happens to be his ex-girlfriend -- throws at him. Most recently, he blew an undercover assignment by getting his partner shot in the arm just before crashing the police car into a street market. His driver's license has been revoked (not that he could ever drive), and now might fight the streets of New York on foot.

Continue reading: Taxi Review

Both a winning, friends-or-more romance with intelligent, down-to-earth characters and a melodious love-letter to the heart and soul of hip-hop, "Brown Sugar" signals director Rick Famuyiwa's emergence as an articulate, grown-up voice in African-American (and cross-over) cinema.

Far more mature and perceptive than recent stereotype-hocking, battle-of-the-sexes "comedies" like "The Brothers" and "Two Can Play That Game," this movie may not have a terribly original plot -- in the midst of plans to marry other people, two life-long best friends (Taye Diggs and Sanaa Lathan) finally realize they're meant for each other -- but the story is built around smart, appealing, multi-dimensional characters whose romantic (and other) problems are not simplistic or easily resolved.

The supernaturally handsome and magnetic Diggs plays Dre, an executive at a record label that has sold its soul for commercial success. Torn between making a good living and sticking to his principles (defined by his true love of unadulterated, old-school hip-hop), he finally walks out when his boss tells him "You wanna keep it real, you go to (another label). You wanna keep it profitable, that's what we do." (A running gag features the label's talentless new black-and-white novelty rap duo who call themselves "the dalmatians of hip-hop" and plan to remake "The Girl Is Mine" as "The Ho is Mine.")

Continue reading: Brown Sugar Review

Motivated solely by corporate greed, Disney has recently begun cranking out low-ambition, high-profit margin throwaway pictures as bad as any of the odious junkers (e.g. "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes") that the studio released in the 1960s and '70s.

If it's not soulless, uncalled for sequels ("Return to Never Land," "Cinderella 2"), it's hackneyed kiddie-angst comedies ("The Princess Diaries," "Max Keeble's Big Move") with no greater purpose than the mindless, robotic recycling of familiar themes to sell soundtracks and videos through relentless self-promotion on ABC TV and Radio Disney.

But this trend may have hit a new low with the release of "The Country Bears," in which writer Mark Perez and director Peter Hastings take an outdated, Chuck E. Cheese-quality Disneyland attraction called the Country Bear Jamboree and turn it into a trite, cliché-packed embarrassment of a feature film.

Continue reading: The Country Bears Review