Ice Age: Collision Course. Photo: Blue Sky Studios
Reviewer rating:
★★
This is the fifth Ice Age movie in 14 years, which means that Fox Studios now holds the record for the most successful animated franchise ever inspired by a mass extinction event.
Ice Age: Collision Course. Photo: Blue Sky Studios
It also means we're getting to the point when viewers who saw the first film as preteens will be able to introduce their own children to Manny the mammoth (Ray Romano), Sid the sloth (John Leguizamo) and company, though I'm not sure anyone is likely to view these characters with deep nostalgia.
An exception might be made for Scrat (Chris Wedge), the hapless, acorn-obsessed squirrel who pops up in wordless slapstick interludes separate from the rest of the cast. This time he finds himself in outer space, where he bounces around as if trapped in a pinball machine, inadvertently launching a deadly meteor at Earth.
As in previous Ice Age instalments, the Scrat segments are the highlights, while the main storyline combines pointlessly glossy animation with dialogue from a mediocre sitcom about the woes of middle age. Not only is Manny faced with the potential destruction of the planet, he also has to rethink his relationship with his daughter Peaches (Keke Palmer), now all grown up with a toadying hipster fiance (Adam DeVine). Meanwhile, sabre-toothed felines Diego (Denis Leary) and Shira (Jennifer Lopez) contemplate starting a family of their own, while the bumbling Sid still seeks true love.
Ice Age: Collision Course. Photo: Blue Sky Studios
"You look nothing like your profile picture," one of Sid's dates complains – a lazy joke that falls well below the Flintstones level, since the writers make no effort to imagine how a prehistoric version of Tinder would operate. Indeed, exhaustion is the keynote here. Threatened catastrophes come and go in the Ice Age universe, but Manny and the gang seem doomed regardless, worn down by the relentless march of time.
