Once you get past the fact that dinosaurs, woolly mammoths and saber tooth tigers never co-existed in the real world, you can settle down and enjoy Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs for what it is: the third installment of a successful franchise, spiffed up with very cool 3-D effects. For the literalists out there, our favorite characters come across the dinos in a sort of hidden, underground world. And if you buy into the fact that animals can talk to each other, solve complicated problems and form a herd made up of natural enemies, what’s all the fuss about the time line? It’s a cartoon, forheaven’s sake. It’s not supposed to be factual.

That being said, it’s a bit of a surprise and let down to realize that the favored franchise is running out of steam. I loved the second more than the first, so I found the some what vacuous third installment a little disappointing. The plot develops slowly, andmost of the motivation and subplots are flimsy. Thank heavens for Scrat, the saber-toothed squirrel, whose acorn chasing antics are always a hoot. This time, love threatens to come between him and his precious nut.

Love, if you must pick one word, would be the theme of this installment:  Wooly mammoths Manny and Ellie (Ray Romano and Queen Latifah) are married and about to have a baby; Slothful Sid (John Leguizamo) wants children to call his own so he adopts a trio of soon-to-hatch dinosaur eggs; and saber tooth tiger Diego (Denis Leary) knows he’ll never find love in this pack, so he’s inclined to go his own way and get a more satisfying life.The friends come across a mysterious dino world where love-hate relationships seem to be the order of the day, and danger and beauty juxtapose and coexist. Simon Pegg voices a fun new character from down under, named Buck.

Sure there are laughs, and there is actually some real dramatic tension as rescues are required and endings teeter on the unhappy. There’s nothing really wrong with Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. It’s just that there’s nothing really strikingly right aboutit either. It’s nothing more and nothing less than a suitable summer diversion for the kids.

Rated PG

—Lisa Johnson Mandell