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Though slightly charming, 'Ice Age: Collision Course' is an unnecessary sequel (C-)

Considering that the first Ice Age movie was released fourteen years ago (about the same amount of time it took Disney to make one Finding Nemo sequel), upon seeing this fifth installment of the franchise, I began to wonder why it existed. While the movie was decent and had some fun personalities, its existence was entirely unnecessary.

The plot fell pretty flat, and for the most part, the individual characters were the funniest parts of the movie. That, and the toddler who felt the need to start dancing at the front of the theater before the movie began.

Maybe you can guess the plot. A fun situation at the beginning of the movie, one of the herd does something stupid to irritate the others, antagonist appears, group comes back together and they all survive extinction yet again.

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Oh wait ... isn't that the plot of the other four movies? The only difference between this movie and the other four is that the antagonist is a magnetic glowing purple meteor (because all magnets glow) instead of a saber toothed tiger pack, global warming, a dinosaur that looks like the antagonist of Jurassic World or the end of Pangaea.

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How will they survive this time? They don't have nuclear weapons to launch at the meteor but rest assured, this is a PG movie. They can't annihilate the world.

Also, why has global warming not killed these creatures? There is not nearly enough snow and ice around those mammoths to prevent them from overheating with all of that fur.

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Logic aside, subplots seemed to be what defined this movie, and half of them were about the love interests of every couple — or single in the case of Sid (John Leguizamo). At times, those storylines got kind of ridiculous, and they brought to mind the never ending failed love cycles in all superhero TV shows.

The stars of Collision Course Ellie (Queen Latifah) and Manny (Ray Romano) have marital/parental/social angst as their daughter Peaches (Keke Palmer) and her fiance Julian (Adam Devine) get ready to tie the knot and roam the world. But before they can do that, Julian has to prove himself to Manny in this awkward "father hates potential son-in-law" subplot.

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The franchise also brought back many of it's previous laughable characters like Crash and Eddie along with Granny, Sid's grandmother (voiced by Wanda Sykes), who in the trailer rants "don't you hurry me, I've been struck by lightning more times than you've had hot breakfasts" after Sid begs her to move faster to avoid an electrical storm.

The most important subplot of all, which was really a side-plot, was Scrat's (Chris Wedge). In his lifelong trek to find the perfect place to bury his acorn, he went into space, and caused a significant amount of havoc (including launching the meteor towards Earth) narrated by one of our favorite astrophysicists, Neil Degrasse Tyson.

"Since the beginning of time, we have wondered how the universe came to be. A gloriously orchestrated plan? Or something much much dumber."

By the end, I felt like the writers of Collision Course had attempted to cram as much random s--- into the movie as possible. But if that's true, there might be a silver lining: This might actually be the end of the ice age.

ICE AGE: COLLISION COURSE (C-)

Directed by Mike Thurmeier and Galen Chu. PG (for mild rude humor and some action-peril). 100 minutes. In wide release.