If you’re looking for a more family-friendly movie this weekend, or basically any movie that doesn’t include a shot of Sharon Stone’s vagina, “”Ice Age: The Meltdown”” looks to be your best bet.

At first glance, “”Ice Age”” looks like a happy-go-lucky film filled with happy little critters whizzing down ice tunnels and gleefully frolicking about. What these critters don’t know, though, is that Armageddon is on the way. Global warming has started to melt their surroundings. Here, global warming can’t be solved by the critters turning off their carbon-monoxide-emitting cars. There’s no real way to fix this catastrophe, as the walls of ice that block in the valley are going to melt and start a gigantic flood in three days. Their only hope is to make it to the end of the valley, where apparently there’s a boat that they can all get on to ride it out.

As everyone is making the trek toward safety, Manny (Ray Romano), Diego (Denis Leary), and Sid (John Leguizamo), the main characters who return from the first “”Ice Age”” movie, branch out on their own. It’s then that Diego and Sid point out to Manny that mammoths are going extinct, and he seems to be the only remaining one. Fortunately, on their way to the boat, they run into another mammoth, Ellie (Queen Latifah). Problem is, she thinks that she’s a possum. So before the meltdown begins, they have to make it to safety and convince Ellie that she really is a mammoth so she and Manny can get it on and save their species.

Since “”Ice Age: The Meltdown”” is a film from the animators at Pixar, everyone comes in expecting amazing graphics. The computer designers at Pixar don’t disappoint. In every close-up of the animals, you can see how detailed the fur and feathers are. The textures of the animals are lovingly done, down to the most minute detail. Not that many of us have ever seen mammoths up close, but Pixar’s versions are almost more realistic than an actual version.

The biggest strength of “”Ice Age”” is also its biggest problem: Scrat, the saber-toothed squirrel. He provides some of the best comedic moments in the movie with his never-ending attempts to grab hold of that elusive acorn. He fights off piranhas, tunnels his way through ice, stands up to bald eagles – the list of what he does to get that acorn is seemingly endless. Some of these interludes come at the worst moments, cutting up the real action of the movie. While the water is rising around the main characters who are trapped in a cave, in comes a clip of the squirrel scurrying up the ice to get his acorn. It wrecks the tension that is building in the audience because of the action.

“”Ice Age: The Meltdown”” doesn’t really further the plot or the characters established the first time around, nor does it make a serious argument for lifestyle changes to prevent future global warming, but it’s certainly more charming than the ice-cold Sharon Stone.