The cash-spinning Ice Age films aren't quite classics of modern animation, but they come close. And while they don't entrance like Ratatouille or soar like the forthcoming Up, they contain some of the most fully realised animated characters yet seen. Once again, the unlikely CGI "herd" - led by woolly mammoth Manny (Ray Romano) - is on a mission. This time, it's to rescue the loveable lisping sloth Sid (John Leguizamo), who's broken away from the herd and found himself in a spot of bother after adopting a trio of newborn dinosaurs.

Despite the title, there's not a lot of ice in this 3-D movie, as Manny, his pregnant mate Ellie (Queen Latifah), sabre-toothed tiger Diego (Denis Leary) and co. search for Sid in a lush, subterranean lost world of scary prehistoric beasts. A new character, Buck (Simon Pegg) - a swashbuckling weasel with a leaf for an eye-patch and a knife fashioned from a dinosaur tooth - is hilarious; but sabre-tooth squirrel Scrat makes a somewhat tiresome return in a running joke about an endless quest for an acorn.

The third instalment in Fox's Blue Sky Studios' franchise, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is perhaps the most action-packed of the three films, and much of its humour is pure Looney Toons slapstick. The animation is excellent, the realistic way the creatures move is amazing, and the 3-D follows the new ethos of subtlety. The filmmakers make only one serious mistake - the cute history of how these characters first connected is ignored, and it robs Ice Age newcomers.

The films are all pretty predictable, but this franchise thrives because of the care that's been put into characterisation and casting. Romano's Manny is especially enjoyable. He's so real that you might, just quietly, think the mammoth lives and breathes during the breaks between filming.