I saw the ‘making of’ a while ago and the animator was going on and on how new fur and water effects added a new level of realism and all I could think was “dude, it’s a friggin’ cartoon!”. But in all honesty, it does look amazing. The fur moves with the wind, gets wet, and the water! Wow.
Great animation, excellent timing on the execution of gags, and who could hate Scrat, the neurotic protosquirrel? There were some ‘cheap sentiment’ shots but overall it was nice, friendly, and fun. And everyone knows I’m a sucker for CGI.
In short, it’s cheerful, it’s harmless, it might be spoonfed corny entertainment but I still had a laugh or two. This movie didn’t pretend to offer anything more so I was not disappointed. And it had CGI.