ICE AGE : COLLISION COURSE

ICE AGE 5The fifth Ice Age instalment has come around. Given the previous two films didn’t meet expectations, I was prepared for the worst as I sat down to go on another journey with the Ice Age gang: Manny (Ray Romano), Diego (Denis Leary), and Sid (Joey Leguizamo). It’s a decent film, definitely better than its two predecessors, but it could have been fine-tuned into a great one. While the film does recapture a bit of the life of the original and, indeed, had me chuckling periodically throughout, I found it is trying too hard and achieving too little.

The overall plot is entertaining, particularly the cameos by Neil deBuck Weasel (voiced by famed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson) to help ‘explain’ the pseudo-science governing the film. As the title hints, there is a large asteroid coming towards earth as a result of Scrat’s antics in the prologue and the gang need to find a way to divert it and save the world from mass extinction.

This would’ve been a brilliant story for the original characters to tackle alone (read Manny, Diego and Sid), but instead, they are guided by the ever-crazy Buck (Simon Pegg’s character from the third film) and have also brought a bunch of secondary characters along for the ride: Ellie, Crash and Eddie, Peaches, and Julian (Peaches’ hipster, new-age, no-life-plan, opposite-to-Manny-in-every-way, sub-plot catalyst boyfriend). With all these characters vying for a spot in front of the camera, the film is crowded and I felt I never got to truly reunite with my old friends from the original.

I’m generally a big fan of animated kids’ films, especially when they can capture 1) the silly slapstick comedy which amuses young children, 2) the situational comedy which amuses older children, and 3) the innuendo which amuses the chauffeuring adults. The film had copious amounts of the first to greatly amuse the youngest viewers (Scrat gets it right again – although his tribulations are slightly too violent this time), just enough of the second to engage the older kids, but dismally little of the third. What made the first Ice Age great was its ability to amuse viewers of all ages; Collision Course seems to have forgotten that perhaps the adults accompanying their children also want to enjoy the movie.

Aside from too many characters spoiling the broth, and an unfortunate lack of adult-oriented humour, the film is entertaining and worth taking the kids to during the school holidays (or going alone on a Saturday morning – don’t judge me). It provides cheap laughs and has a smattering of semi-amusing intertextual references to get you through, coming out the other side with a smile on your face.