Ice Age: Collision Course
Directors: Mike Thurmeier, Galen T. Chu
Stars: Adam Devine, Simon Pegg, Jennifer Lopez
Duration: 94 mins
Class: U
KRS Releasing Ltd
Ice Age: Collision Course is the fifth film in the animated franchise that follows the myriad adventures of an assortment of mammals in the Palaeolithic age... while the now (in)famous sabre-toothed squirrel Scrat continues his ineffectual and seemingly endless chase of that elusive acorn.
Having been indirectly responsible for the plotlines that drove the first four films (ie, the titular Ice Age, the subsequent The Meltdown, The Age of the Dinosaurs and Continental Drift) Scrat’s actions this time lead up to the era in the evolution of the planet known as the Big Bang.
Acorn in sight, Scrat comes across an alien spaceship which he accidentally activates and is hurled into the deepest reaches of space to the edge of the cosmos where he sets off a chain reaction culminating in a ginormous meteor plummeting on a fiery and disastrous path towards Earth…
…Where an oblivious Manny the woolly mammoth (voiced by Ray Romano) is facing a disaster of a domestic kind with the news that his daughter Peaches (Keke Palmer) plans on marrying her fiancé – the perennially cheerful Julian (Adam DeVine), who Manny believes is not quite right for his daughter.
There’s no escaping the fact that the characters have remained pretty much the same in terms of their already thinly-sketched personalities
When Buck the weasel (Simon Pegg) heralds the news of the incoming meteorite, Manny, his wife Ellie (Queen Latifah) and the old gang – including Sid the sloth (John Leguizamo), Diego the sabre-toothed tiger (Denis Leary) and Diego’s partner Shira (Jennifer Lopez) – must band together to save the earth from certain destruction.
Ice Age: Collision Course offers a fairly original plotline which will engage even the older viewers. It also serves as a solid introduction to astronomy for the younger set, with its depiction of the creation of the afore-mentioned meteorite, the causation of lunar tides, electric storms and so on.
Yes, parents will need to explain to the little ones that Scrat did not, in fact, create the solar system, as the film suggests. Yet, this opening sequence offers the film’s funniest and most colourful moment as Scrat makes his tumultuous way into outer space.
The manic energy which fuels the opening sequence calms down somewhat as the story proper kicks in down on Earth. As does the humour, which settles into a tone of amiable amusement overall, rather than rip-roaring laughter, while the customary message of survival, family, unity and blah blah that underscores proceedings feels obvious and unnecessary. Yet, there is enough adventure in there as the motley menagerie set out to save the world to fill the film’s running time.
As for characterisation, while the younger and less discerning viewer may delight in the return of Manny and company, there’s no escaping the fact that the characters have remained pretty much the same in terms of their already thinly-sketched personalities.
Manny is gruff and tough with a soft heart, Sid fast-talking, slow on the uptake and oftentimes annoying, Diego is fierce, sarcastic and impatient, while Ellie is the patient voice of reason and so on.
It is, ironically, the dialogue-free Scrat (Chris Wedge) who steals every scene that he is in, his acorn-chasing antics never losing their funny edge.