Ice Age: Collision Course Review

PG: Mild Rude Humor and Some Action/Peril

20th Century Fox, Blue Sky Studios

1 hr and 34 Minutes

Voice Cast: Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, Queen Latifah, Simon Pegg, Keke Palmer, Adam Devine, Wanda Sykes, Jennifer Lopez, Jessie J, Seann William Scott, Michael Strahan, Josh Peck, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Max Greenfield, with Nick Offerman, and Neil deGrasse Tyson 

Scrat's epic pursuit of his elusive acorn catapults him outside of Earth, where he accidentally sets off a series of cosmic events that transform and threaten the planet. To save themselves from peril, Manny, Sid, Diego, and the rest of the herd leave their home and embark on a quest full of thrills and spills, highs and lows, laughter and adventure while traveling to exotic new lands and encountering a host of colorful new characters.

REVIEW: It has been 14 years since the release of the first Ice Age, the first feature film from Blue Sky Studios. Though the first film didn’t have the best animation, the film had more story to tell then impress us with its animation. The first Ice Age was a great standalone movie, that didn’t need a sequel. With every sequel the film focused more impressive animation than story which seems to always make a lot of money. WE’RE IN 2016 AND AT OUR FOURTH FUCKING SEQUEL! Why?! Was Blue Sky challenging Dreamworks thinking oh you can have Shrek do 4 movies, watch us make 5 with Ice Age. The only inspiration that came from this film was from the first in one scene that pretty much was the root to all of the ideas for every sequel from 2009’s Dawn of the Dinosaurs to now Collision Course.

THE GOOD: With every Ice Age film, we see the evolution in the studio’s animation. Every character is perfectly rendered and have the same good looking designs. Each character (even the new ones to a certain extent) have fur and you can tell a lot of time was spent adding fur to each and every single one of them. And experinceing the film in 3D it is rather impressive on what the studio can do with their effects especially during one continuous shot where Buck is singing Pigaro while saving an egg from a family of dromeosaurs. 

As much as I’m done with this franchise, I rather just ask Blue Sky to give Scrat the Minions treatment. Please just give HIM a movie, because with every sequel and more so this one he is genuinely the funniest and most enjoyable character to watch. With each movement he makes, it causes each plot to begin. As much as I wish death upon this character so we won’t see any other stories with Manny and the herd, the animators behind this always does a certain clever and constantly hilarious visual gag with him that is such a joy to see. There are plenty of dull moments where you ask, “huh I wonder what’s Scrat is up to.” Just give us a Scrat movie, I know you want to Blue Sky. I know you can do it. 

THE BAD: Though with each Ice Age film we see the evolution in the studio’s animation, we also see the devolution in story. This movie is by far not a movie. This could’ve been either a television movie or a Netflix movie or something, because this really has no theatrical value at all. By this point, I’m convinced 20th Century Fox doesn’t care for making family films unless it involves them making a quick buck. I say this because, this film is as big as a cash grab as the last Alvin and the Chipmunks movie as it had the nerve to open against Star Wars. I swear beyond the 3D glasses I saw an animal laundering money for Fox in the background. Okay this isn’t true but with this movie it felt like it. 

The major problem with this is movie is the same problem I had for the past 2 movies [yes I like the Meltdown], a good script. There is no sense of story with any of these films except that, we need to get to either point A to point B to get back to point A in the end but each character has to go through something like we care anymore about their problems by this point. It’s as if the screenplay was written by some writers of a network TV sitcom because the problems Sid, Manny, and Deigo have in this film is similar to an episode to How I Met Your Mother. There’s a scene where the trio is at a bar like spot drinking talking about their issues. Granted its funny for the moment but you remember this is supposed to be the Ice Age That is how weak the screenplay is, especially since this consisted of three writers. And not only three writers with different backgrounds, but writers that all contributed to least one Ice Age film. 

Its like this movie was greenly from a girl’s fan fiction, because the number of new characters they crap out in each one of these films is annoying. What happened to the Josh Gad molehog that was in love with Peaches in the fourth film, NOT PRESENT HERE! What happened to the Drake and Nikki Minaj mammoths from the fourth film? DITTO AS JOSH GAD! But what do we get? An Adam Devine mammoth that Peaches is happened to be engaged to. We don’t know where he came from. We don’t know who he is. He’s just there and is annoying as hell. 

There is no sense of story anymore with these movies for they only rely on visual gags and physical humor that is from mediocre to unfunny. And if the movie is not doing those things, it relies on the lowest hanging fruit of a joke ranging from movie references that only adults would get, to modern day slang and most of this comes from Adam Devine. If Adam Devine was a mammoth, his character Julien (who is one of the main central characters in this film) is just Adam Devine animated as a mammoth due to expressions he uses from “mad air on the half-pipe,” to “brother from another mother,” and its excruciating to hear. They even have Crash and Eddie saying expressions like “hashtag,” and Peaches saying “low-key.” God bless they had Jennifer Lopez saying 5 if not 4 lines throughout the entire film. With the use of slang its the writers trying to be hip and fresh with the kids of today, but doesn’t seem to realize they’re trying too hard that in the long run it will make this anything but fresh. Think in 20 years when people are watching this and notice use of the some of the slang used in the film. By that point it’ll be outdated and those jokes will get nothing but crickets.

If that wasn’t bad enough the film goes out of its way to make random humor that is either creepy or makes little to no sense. The movie brings back Buck [who happens to be one of my favorite characters from the entire franchise], and destroys everything that I loved about him just to make some stupid cameo by Neil deGrasse Tyson and a Dalek. 

They bring in Jessie J as a sloth named Brooke into the film as a love interest for Sid and the reason for her falling for him is unexplained but just happens. A lot of the things in this film just happens and the number of new characters introduced just makes the film’s plot so convoluted and confusing that by the end when a rule that was centered around Brooke is supposed to be explained, she just starts singing because she’s Jessie J gotta promote a song. The film just ends like how every 3rd animated film nowadays end when they don’t know how to end a movie, SINGING AND DANCING! GOD KNOWS HOW MUCH I’M TIRED OF SINGING AND DANCING IN THE END OF THESE ANIMATED MOVIES AND THIS FRANCHISE JUST NEEDS TO DIE! 

LAST STATEMENT: I walked into the film hoping to see a nice conclusion of a franchise by the reality of death, and only walked out wishing everyone would die. Ice Age Collision Course is the bottom of the barrel cash grab of a film that families need to avoid. With much better animated fare that is still fresh in theaters (talking about Secret Life of Pets and Finding Dory), this film boasts nothing but bright animation, a recycled storyline, annoying characters, and most of all unfunny humor. This age of Ice Age needs to stop here.

Rating: 0.5/5 | 16%

Super Scene: Enter Buck in a Birdman shot.