[Review] Ice Age: Collision Course

The first Ice Age movie holds a dear place in my heart, with its fuzzy characters and warm story. The second one (The Meltdown) is a huge step back, and the third one (with the Dinosaurs) is even worse. The fourth one--Wait there's a fourth one? Anyway, the new Collision Course crashes and burns as the fifth "Ice Age" piece to enter theaters, and it's seriously time to put an end to it.

Woolly Mammoth mates Manny (Ray Romano) and Ellie (Queen Latifah) are back, and their daughter is now grown up and planning to get married. After a slow start, we learn that an incoming asteroid is just days away from destroying the planet. So with some help from a Weasel named Buck (who comes off as a hyperactive, bootlegged Jack Sparrow), the group plans to somehow stop it.

Even considering the apparently high stakes--this film is boring, uninspired, and frankly obnoxious. The majority of the characters begin to annoy. Sid has gone into full Jar Jar Binks mode. The two little opossum brothers... just awful. Sabertooth Diego isn't bad, but he has absolutely zero to do here. And Manny, who was once a lovable giant, spends the whole duration being a crazy overprotective father while mocking his daughter's boyfriend (who actually seems like an alright dude).

The script is full of shoddy dialogue, trite gags, and puns that don't even deserve to be called puns. Any notion of humor is virtually extinct. The only amusing element is the Wanda Sykes-voiced grandma of Sid. As for the story, it contains enough plot holes and leaps in logic to fill a colossal crater. This thing makes this year's Angry Birds movie look like frickin' The Godfather.

It's best just to pretend Ice Age: Collision Course doesn't exist. Maybe the asteroid should've struck.

( 3/10 )

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