Scrat, everyone’s favorite squirrel from the Ice Age franchise, is still in pursuit of his precious acorn. This time, his pursuit leads him into outer space, where twists and turns directly effect what’s happening on earth. It’s because of Scrat, the Ice Age gang find themselves running against time and an asteroid.
As the fifth installment in the Ice Age series, “Ice Age: Collision Course” has found itself in a very pivotal time. As with a lot of films, the more you make in a series, the high the risk that you lose your mojo and it becomes increasingly harder to recover. With action/horror films/adventure films there are certain obstacles, but with animated films, it’s an entirely different set of obstacles. The only film that I can see continuing its run with little worry is Toy Story. But Toy Story has the benefit of the doubt factor being a Disney-Pixar creation. With them dominating the animated film field, it makes one wonder if this Twentieth Century Fox Animation project can survive. I think we all see what happened to the once beloved “Land Before Time” series (which extended their series to 14 films and a TV series).
With all of that being said (and I’m sure the creators knew all of this), this movie fell in the trap of most current comedies that I’ve noted before: Yell/Show as many shock images/words as possible and hope it goes over well.
There were a lot of attempts at comedy for the parents but it wasn’t like “The Secret Life of Pets.” Here we see glowing nipples, scenes of excrement being stepped on and then thrown at other characters, brief comments about cross-species mating, a Llama who lightly pushes religion, and the duo that is Crash and Eddie had a few scenes where they appeared androgynous. Normally, I’d say that adult humor is for adults but that’s hard to combat when images come into play. To juxtapose, “Finding Dory” had seals who looked funny and had funny accents, “The Secret Life of Pets” quoted lines and names from 80’s and 90’s movies, “Collision Course” has glowing nipples and poo.
It continues with more adult topics like getting married, dating, and reasons galore why being single equates to being alone. Again, I’d say these are broader contexts but still applicable. If I can see them, you can too.
Peaches (Keke Palmer) has a new love interest named Julian (Adam Devine) and they have intend to get married and move away. Naturally, Manny (Ray Romano) doesn’t want her to leave and doesn’t approve of Julian at all. But the focus and conversation changes thanks to Scrat’s mischievous interstellar hunt for his acorn. A new and foreign image appears in the sky and a new furry image comes out of the ground.
Buck (Simon Pegg) is identified by Diego (Denis Leary) and continues to tell the pack that trouble is heading their way. After the group discovers the meteor is headed right for them, the group find themselves in a life or death predicament.
“Ice Age Collision” course gets a 6 out of 10. I hope this fifth installment doesn’t equate to death for the franchise, but they are definitely teetering towards the end of their mojo. It’s a fun film if you want to see something this weekend with your family or your kids, but it’s not something you’re “missing” that’ll be talked about next week.
-Jon J.