"Ice Age: Collision Course" is surprisingly entertaining – especially for the fifth installment in the franchise.

dave-mcclain

score 8/10

With the release of Blue Sky Studios' "Ice Age: Collision Course" (PG, 1:34), the "Ice Age" series of movies has become the 13th highest grossing film franchise to date and, as IMDb.com tells it, "the first computer animated theatrical franchise to feature five installments." A closer look reveals some even more interesting facts about the franchise. Each of the previous four films got equal or lower ratings as compared to the previous film (according to Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and CinemaScore), but each earned MORE money than its predecessor (except for the fourth one, in regards to North America). The films get ideas from each other (with the third and fifth inspired by the museum scene in the first) and also spawn spin-off short films (two of which became Oscar nominees) and television specials.

Beyond all that, over the 14 years between the first film (2002's "Ice Age") and this fifth installment in 2016, directors have come and gone (with some overlap), with the core voice cast remaining remarkably consistent, while each film also added new characters. The original movie's four main voice actors (Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary and Chris Wedge) have appeared in all five films, three others (Queen Latifah, Seann William Scott and Josh Peck) have appeared in all but the first film and over 30 voice actors (with many big names in the mix) worked on either one or two of these movies. Putting it another way, "Ice Age: Collision Course" features seven actors who have voiced characters in four or all five of the "Ice Age" movies and four others are back for seconds – and what a talented cast they form! "Ice Age: Collision Course" takes place four years after the action in the previous film – the same amount of time between the release of the films – just like the actual time and story time gaps between all the "Ice Age" films. As the fifth edition opens, the cute, accident-prone, acorn-loving saber tooth squirrel, Scrat (Wedge), finds a flying saucer encased in ice, but accidentally (in pursuit of that acorn, of course), breaks the ship free and flies it into outer space – with disastrous results for our solar system (as you may have seen in the animated short "Cosmic Scrat-tastrophe" which preceded 2015's theatrical showings of "The Peanuts Movie"). Scrat's misadventures in space inadvertently send a large asteroid hurtling towards earth, unbeknownst to the relatively carefree prehistoric mammals living below.

The Herd (as the main characters in the franchise are called) are, for the moment, all oblivious to their impending doom and doing their best to live their lives as happily as possible. Peaches (Keke Palmer), the daughter of wooly mammoths Manny and Ellie (Romano and Latifah), is making plans for her marriage to fellow mammoth Julian (Adam DeVine). Manny is having a hard time warming up to the eager-to-please Julian (who calls his future father-in-law "Dad Bro") and both Manny and Ellie are struggling with the idea of "losing" their only child. It also happens to be Manny and Ellie's anniversary and Manny (who has forgotten) allows Ellie to believe that a well-timed meteor shower is his gift to her.

That celestial event, however, turns out to be the opening salvo in what could mean the extinction of all life on earth. The resourceful and smarter-than-he-looks one-eyed weasel named Buck (Simon Pegg) discovers and interprets an ancient prophecy carved in stone which reveals that a huge asteroid is coming – and what previous asteroids have done to the earth. With the help of an even smarter weasel named Neil deBuck Weasel (Neil deGrasse Tyson), Buck hatches a plan that might actually save the world, but he's going to need the help of the rest of The Herd. Besides Manny and his family, others that get involved include saber tooth tiger couple Diego (Leary) and Shira (Jennifer Lopez), lisping lovelorn ground sloth Sid (Leguizamo) and even the irreverent comical opossums Crash & Eddie (Scott and Peck).

As they work to carry out their mission, The Herd makes new friends – and new enemies. Living at the location where Buck says the big asteroid is going to strike is a hippy community that includes a pretty sloth named Brooke (Jesse J), a fearless rabbit called Teddy (Michael Strahan) and a pair of "minicorns" named Bubbles and Misty (Lilly Singh), all of whom are led by a self-centered guru called Shangri Llama (Jesse Tyler Ferguson). Meanwhile, three flying dinosaurs (Nick Offerman, Stephanie Beatriz and Max Greenfield) don't think it's such a bad thing for all the mammals to perish (thinking that the dinosaurs will be able to simply soar above the destruction)… and Scrat is still in space… chasing that acorn.

"Ice Age: Collision Course" is surprisingly entertaining – especially for the fifth installment in the franchise. The animation takes full advantage of the latest CGI technology and it looks great (although I'm not sure that it's worth it to pay extra for the 3D glasses). The returning characters feel as fresh as ever and the new characters blend in beautifully with The Herd – not to mention that the voice cast may be one of the best assembled for a single animated feature. What's more, this movie actually has a plot! The film's story, themes, script and jokes are likely to entertain kids and adults alike. "Ice Age: Collision Course" is very amusing – and fun for the whole family! "A-"

dave-mcclain 23 July 2016

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3510620/