By the time mammoths and saber-toothed tigers ruled the Earth 10,000 years ago, dinosaurs had been extinct for 65 million years or so.

But kids love dinosaurs even more than they love woolly mammoths. This is why — paleontology be damned! — the folks behind the Ice Age movies have united their mammoths and saber-toothed tiger with tyrannosaurs, triceratops, pterodactyls and more in the third outing for the series — Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. It’s also the first Ice Age movie in 3-D, so audiences can have an in-your-face encounter.

All the favorite characters from the first two films are back, including Scrat, the prehistoric squirrel-rat, who is forever trying to grab that giant acorn which always seems just out of reach. This time Scrat must compete with a svelte female squirrel rat with long lashes who has a big appetite for that big acorn, too. Their "I've got it!-No you don't!" antics get Dawn of the Dinosaurs off to a rousing start and they turn up now and again throughout the film to keep things lively. Scrat and his female rival recall the best moments of the old Wile E. Coyote-Roadrunner cartoons.

Although Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is historically inaccurate, this Lost World adventure is loaded with action and laughs, and a lot of heart. At the start of the film Manny the Mammoth (voice by Ray Romano) and his bride, Ellie (Queen Latifah), are expecting their first baby behemoth … any day, in fact. This sends Diego the tiger (Denis Leary) into a funk. Diego fears Manny will soon go his own way and he will be left out in the cold … literally, this being the Ice Age after all.

Diego also worries that he might be losing his edge. He gets winded while chasing down an antelope in an exciting, fast-paced sequence that's a remarkable example of the 3-D technology as Diego and the antelope run up and down the landscape.

The third member of their trio - the always-in-trouble Sid the Sloth (John Leguizamo) - is happy for Manny and Ellie, but wishes he had a real family to call his own. Then he gets the chance.

Sid finds three enormous eggs underground in the ice of a cave and brings them to the surface. In a very funny sequence Sid slides down mountain slopes with the eggs, trying to protect them from shattering.

But what's this? When the eggs hatch Sid finds three very ugly lizard-like creatures. They may be ugly to his friends and more than a little creepy, but Sid loves them. "I'm a single mother with three kids," he tells his pals. This may not be such a good idea because the little critters are baby tyrannosaurs with giant appetites. They view the other young mammals that are frolicking around them as tasty treats, something that becomes all too apparent when Sid takes his "children" to a playground and the little dinosaurs begin trying to gobble down their playmates.

Things get a little more dire and a lot more exotic when Manny and the others, including Ellie and her irrepressible opossum brothers Crash (Seann William Scott) and Eddie (Josh Peck) decide the dinosaurs should be returned to the cave where the eggs were uncovered. Way down inside they discover a hot and humid Lost World where dinosaurs still rule and the real mother of Sid's kids wants her babies back. This leads to a round of adventures as the mammals try to navigate the dangers of this prehistoric place - including giant Venus flytraps that have a taste for mammals, fleet-footed velociraptorsstraight out of Steven Spielberg's The Lost World: Jurassic Park and a river of lava from an erupting volcano - and find their way back home to the surface of the Earth.

They're helped by Buck the weasel (British actor Simon Pegg), a daredevil character with a banana-leaf eye patch. In a subplot that has echoes of Moby Dick, Buck turns out to be a sort of Captain Ahab figure who has spent his life down below in constant pursuit of Rudy, a giant white dinosaur.

There are laughs and thrills and spills galore that sometimes almost end up in your lap thanks to the 3-D. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is good fun even though you might spill your popcorn.

mjanuson@projo.com / (401) 277-7276

****Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

Voices: Ray Romano, Denis Leary, John Leguizamo, Queen Latifah, Seann William Scott, Josh Peck, Simon Pegg.

Rated: PG, contains violence, scary creatures.