Ice Age

Fox's Ice Age DVD is just plain hot! The double-disc set is filled with hilarious menus and more extra features than can be scrawled on a cave wall. How many times can viewers watch the rodent-like animated Scrat character get squashed--and still laugh? As many times as you can hit play. The film's running gag of mishaps have been incorporated into the menu pages designed by Creative Domain--and we could sit and watch them all day. However, that's just the tip of the, well, iceberg. Two animated shorts are offered: The dark but heartfelt 1998 Academy Award winner Bunny from Ice Age director Chris Wedge and, for those who didn't get enough of the aforementioned rat/squirrel, the hilarious Gone Nutty: Scrat's Missing Adventure shows our hero in everything from an aerial acorn ballet to an explanation of the formation of the planet's continents. Six deleted scenes are unearthed and come with optional commentary from Wedge and co-director Carlos Saldanha. The hilarious clip Sid on Sid features the Sloth, voiced by John Leguizamo, offering running commentary on several of his onscreen highlights, including his problematic relationship with the sabre-toothed tiger Diego and how one of the dodo birds got hurt on the fifth take of falling into a pit. Digging even deeper, Under the Ice, produced and directed by Shawn Anderson and New York-based Plexifilm, pulls back the curtain on anything related to the making of Ice Age. It shows how CG characters are created from the earliest pencil sketches to the final digitized 3D model and follows the evolution of the animation through every stage of its development. "It's like having a child," explains Wedge. "It starts out blank and collects input from the environment and you as a parent and comes to life." Eight DVD-ROM features and three interactive games round this two-disc glacier of a deal. --Jamie Clark