Susan Granger’s review of “Ice Age: Collision Course” (Blue Sky Studio/20th Century-Fox)
Unless you’re truly desperate to get the kids out of the house and into an air-conditioned theater, forget about this fifth installment in the animated franchise, which seems headed for its own extinction.
It begins, as usual, with a Paleolithic prologue in which Scrat the neurotic Squirrel is chasing that elusive acorn. But, this time, he discovers a frozen UFO and catapults into space, inadvertently sending a huge, destructive asteroid hurtling toward Earth.
That spurs the perpetually bickering Wooly Mammoth family – Manny (voiced by Ray Romano), his wife Ellie (voiced by Queen Latifah), and grown-daughter Peaches (voiced by Keke Palmer), along with her betrothed Julian (voiced by Adam Devine) – into action, propelled by their old friend Buck the weasel (voiced by Simon Pegg), who has a clever plan to avert the inevitable catastrophe.
Also on-board are Sid the sloth (voiced by John Leguizamo), his sassy Granny (voiced by Wanda Sykes) and the saber-tooth tigers, Diego (voiced by Denis Leary) and his wife Shira (voiced by Jennifer Lopez).
There’s a cameo by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson as scientist Neil deBuck Weasel and a yoga-loving guru, Shangri Llama (voiced by Jesse Tyler Ferguson), who dabbles in crystals, plus a trio of “dino-birds” whose leader is voiced by Nick Offerman.
It quickly becomes obvious that screenwriters Michael Wilson, Michael Berg and Yoni Brenner have run out of original ideas and are now into re-cycle mode, rhyming words with “duty,” “poop” and “butt,” giving co-directors Mike Thurmeier and Galen T. Chu little substance and an overabundance of tiresome characters to work with.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Ice Age: Collision Course” is a colorful but tepid 3, making one wish for a cataclysmic disaster to melt all of them.
