Was the first “Ice Age” any good to begin with? That I have not a single concrete memory of the 2002 animated hit does not bode well for its sequel, “Ice Age: The Meltdown.” This version may be just as forgettable as its predecessor, but has the added bonus of being frustratingly bland. The film reunites the cast of its original, and rather than putting together a concrete story, presents a collection of individual scenes and episodes pasted together, making it far more reminiscent of a lazy dud than a theatrical feature.

The film was created by Blue Sky, a company that despite its best efforts (it also made “Robots”) remains minor league compared to Pixar. Pixar gears its films toward families and consistently produces films with superior writing and superb animation.This one is targeted heavily at children (its PG rating is due to a “racy” word rather than any adult thematic element). “The Meltdown” leaves plenty of room for prehistoric flatulence, which may be endlessly entertaining for toddlers, but will lead their parents to fill out crossword puzzles in the dark.

Directed by Carlos Saldanha, the film picks up not so long after the end of the first film, with Manny the woolly mammoth (voiced by Ray Romano), Sid the sloth (John Leguizamo), and Diego the saber-toothed tiger (Denis Leary) living harmoniously with various other creatures among the glaciers. But the global warming that is rapidly melting their home will lead to a devastating flood, and when the three are tipped off that an ark that can house its inhabitants while the earth floods is only a three-day walk away, they pick up their belongings and head to safety.

In the midst of their travels (during which they are unknowingly stalked by a pair of nefarious sea creatures) Manny finds himself being relentlessly ridiculed by his pals – it seems, alas, as though he is the last of the woolly mammoths. But as luck would have it, the three come across Ellie (Queen Latifah) who’s not only a fellow woolly, but a female one at that.But the continuing survival of the mammoth race is by no means assured, since for reasons too complicated to explain, Ellie has come under the impression that she is,in fact, a possum (likewise,she believes her two smart-aleck possum compadres, voiced by Seann William Scott and Josh Peck, are her brothers). It takes a little persuasion, but it’s not long before Ellie agrees to join Manny and his friends in their migration southward.

And migrate they do! The writers of “The Meltdown” can find little more for the trio to take part in other than walk, and walk, and walk some more. They walk so much that not one but two scenes are devoted to the study of their own footprints. The film evokes memories of Tom and Jerry cartoons that set the characters chasing after each other while the background repeated itself.

Like its predecessor, the film’s most entertaining scenes come not through any of the celebrity-voiced characters, but in the form of Scrat, an acorn loving squirrel-rat hybrid whose independent scenes of securing food at his own peril make for very funny periodic bookends to the primary action. The makers of “Ice Age 3” might want to think seriously about a full-length feature based exclusively on Scrat’s adventures, rather than finding another excuse for the woolly mammoths of the world to take a stroll.