I have to file a formal apology to Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs: I watched it only two days after viewing Monsters, Inc. for the umpteenth time.

There's no doubt in my mind that Pixar's presence as the big kid on the block is a headache to everyone at Fox's animation department - while their Ice Age franchise has been entirely profitable, in the eyes of the press, it almost always comes down to Fox and Pixar and all those guys playing second fiddle in the Pixar parade. Honestly, though, after experiencing Dawn of the Dinosaurs, I can earnestly say that from a certain vantage point, Pixar's leg up comes from one obvious source: Story.

Dawn of the Dinosaurs follows Manny the mammoth (Ray Romano) and his wife Ellie (Queen Latifah), Sid the Sloth (John Leguizamo) Diego the Smilodon (Denis Leary) and little Scrat (Chris Wedge) as they stumble into a lost world of giant dinosaurs and get caught up in a world of trouble. And that's pretty much it. Yes, of course there are rivals and new friends and unexpected twists and turns, but a simple synopsis of Dawn of the Dinosaurs really is that simple, where the same is not the case with your garden variety Pixar flick.

Not to say Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs isn't devoid of merit - its voice cast truly is top-notch (I'm a sucker for Denis Leary in anything), and when it gathers up a momentum, its adventurous mania hits the heights of the original Blue Sky Films shorts that inspired the Ice Age phenomenon. Yet at the end of the day, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs never adds up to more than the sum of its parts - there's capable, engaging filmmaking here, but no magic.