ICE AGE: COLLISION COURSE (Michael Thurmeier and Galen Chu). 94 minutes. Opens Friday (July 22). See listing. Rating: N
There are now five Ice Age movies, and you’ll be forgiven if you can’t remember a single one. The franchise has grown more lucrative over 14 years, even as the quality, which began at mediocre, has steadily declined.
Manny the mammoth (Ray Romano), Diego the sabre-toothed tiger (Dennis Leary) and Sid the dim-witted sloth (John Leguizamo) have conquered sub-zero temperatures, a meltdown, the dawn of the dinosaurs and the breakup of Pangaea. In Collision Course, they’re outrunning meteors, stubbornly refusing extinction.
Given how much money these movies make, I suspect Manny and his prehistoric company will last long enough to deal with global warming and show us just how dull it can be.
The characters drag their carcasses from scene to scene, dishing out gags, most of which flatline, while dealing with personal dilemmas in mere talking points. (Manny has an annoying future son-in-law, Sid is looking for love, Diego is considering kids).
You can feel the apathy of directors Michael Thurmeier and Galen Chu and the writers, who aren’t in the least invested in these characters or the threat the meteor poses to them. They’ve slapped together a plot that veers wildly from one distraction to another, killing some runtime until the series’s next outing.
