Ice Age: Collision Course
Directors: Mike Thurmeier, Galen T. Chu
Starring: Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Jennifer Lopez
Two stars
The prehistoric posse are back for a fifth outing in Blue Sky’s animated series – though on this evidence the franchise is finally heading toward extinction.
Directed by Mike Thurmeier and Galen T Chu, it’s a zany mix of astrophysics and adolescent antics, as Manny the Mammoth (voiced by Ray Romano) and his pals face major peril from blazing asteroids heading towards Earth.
The cause of the potential disaster is our old friend Scrat – the acorn-chasing squirrel – who has been shot into deep space after discovering a buried alien spacecraft.
In pursuing his delicious morsel – in scenes to the sound of The Blue Danube, the Richard Strauss music that memorably featured in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey – he manages to cause an interstellar incident, setting off a game of planetary ping-pong that leaves the Earth facing certain doom.
Far below, it is business as usual. Manny is fretting about his daughter’s impending nuptials; Sid the Sloth (John Leguizamo) is heartbroken after being dumped; and as for Diego (Denis Leary) ... well, not much is happening with our favourite sabre-toothed tiger, as screenwriter Michael J Wilson seems to have reduced his role to little more than a cameo.
When they realise the apocalypse is coming, as meteors start hitting the ground, chaos ensues. But not before we’ve had a bizarre interlude from astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson – reimagined as a cartoon weasel – to explain the nature of evolution. You’ll wish you had been a fly on Blue Sky’s wall the day they came up with that one.
With Jennifer Lopez and Queen Latifah back as Diego and Manny’s spouses, there’s also a return for Simon Pegg as Buck, the one-eyed weasel, who is more than a trifle annoying.
There are sporadic laughs, frenetic action and core family values, all sliced up in a very generic blender.
Perhaps now is the time to put any further instalments on ice.
artslife@thenational.ae