Featuring the voices of Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Queen Latifah, and Denis Leary. Rated G.

Proof that good cartooning will never go extinct, this snappy Ice Age sequel builds nicely on the characters established in the first movie while striking out into some new territory.

Intriguingly, our furry friends from the first flick, mammoth Manny (Ray Romano), slothful Sid (John Leguizamo), and sabre-toothed Diego (Denis Leary) have survived all the way from the height of the Pleistocene Epoch to its last couple of days, as glaciers start cracking up and pent-up water threatens to give the Katrina treatment to the peaceful, bowl-like valley they currently call home.

It's been perhaps too peaceful for Manny, who has lately begun to suspect that he could be the last of his oversized species. It's a lucky break, then, when he bumps into Ellie (Queen Latifah), a comely pachyderm raised by cowardly possums. That presents only a slight obstacle here, folks, as Manny begins to work his woolly charms. His one gaffe, and the film's inexplicably story-stopping nod to sex-panicked Republicans, occurs when he very gently suggests that it might be in their, you know, general interests to think about procreating. Anyway, it certainly couldn't have been rowdy Queen Latifah who came up with those "No, you di-int" lines.

Whatever anyone thinks of these characters, or of the story, which otherwise keeps moving briskly, it's clear that the audience on the whole will prefer the little Scrat to everything else put together. (Although the minisloths who temporarily worship Sid certainly bring a memorable wallop of absurdity to the proceedings.) Like Wile E. Coyote's endless quest to crush the Road Runner, this scraggly, squirrel-like rodent's wordless search for the perfect acorn touches a universal nerve. Well, it's not exactly timeless, though; in the sequel, Scrat gets about 10 times the footage. He's definitely more than a mere survivor.