When he was very young my friend Lisa's son Jack once woke up in the middle of the night crying. 'Mummy,' he sobbed. 'Why did all the dinosaurs have to die?' Bless. Maybe it's some sort of primal instinct, but in my experience boys in particular seem to love all things prehistoric. In fact, it can become a bit of an obsession (we still have a ludicrously large collection of model T-rex, steogosaurus and the rest).
So yesterday we took what can only be described as a tribe of boys ranging in ages from eight to 15 to a preview of Ice Age 3.
If like us you saw the first Ice Age film but missed the second one, don't worry -it's easy enough to follow, is big on laughs and has the added bonus of Simon Pegg as one of the voices. The animation is brilliant, too, especially the T-rex babies. All the boys (even the permanently unimpressed teens) seemed to enjoy it, and there was very little crying and whinging from the audience, adults included.
Oh, and if you're looking for a great way to cool off your family in the current heatwave, take it from me – two hours in an air-conditioned cinema watching a film set in a frozen world works wonders.
written by Liz Jarvis