Ice Age: Collision Course (2016)

There's a moment watching Ice Age: Collision Course where you realise nobody involved is trying anymore. Not the writers, not the animators in any meaningful creative sense, and almost certainly not the voice cast, who sound like they recorded their lines separately, in different countries, on different days, thinking about something else entirely. It's a grim feeling. It's the feeling of watching something you once genuinely liked be stripped for parts.

I've followed this franchise from the beginning. The original was a warm, funny, surprisingly affecting little film about an unlikely family finding each other in a frozen world. Its first sequel had charm to spare. Even the third film had enough energy and invention to justify its existence. But somewhere along the line, Blue Sky stopped making Ice Age films and started manufacturing Ice Age-branded content. There's a difference, and Collision Course is the starkest proof of it.

The premise, such as it is, involves an asteroid hurtling toward Earth. On paper, fine. Extinction-level stakes, a ticking clock, the whole gang has a reason to move. But in practice, it's the laziest plot device you could possibly bolt onto a fifth instalment. It doesn't connect to any real emotional thread in the characters' lives. It doesn't ask anything new of Manny, Sid or Diego. It just gives the film somewhere to point while a dozen half-formed subplots wander around bumping into each other like confused mammoths.

And there are so many subplots. There's a romantic storyline, a family tension storyline, a Scrat-in-space storyline that admittedly produces one or two mildly amusing moments simply because Scrat operating in zero gravity is a funny image. But none of it coheres. It feels like four or five different story rooms each pitched something, nobody said no to anything, and the whole mess got stitched together with, as I'd put it, melted Sid drool. The seams are showing everywhere.

The humour is the most depressing casualty. The early films had real wit, real comic timing. This one mistakes noise and motion for comedy. Characters shout. Things explode. Wacky new creatures show up. None of it lands. I sat there waiting for a single genuine laugh and it never came. Not once. When a film aimed at kids can't even reliably make kids laugh, something has gone badly wrong at a fundamental level.

I don't want to be cruel about the voice performances individually, because I suspect the actors were given very little to work with. But the whole cast sounds disengaged in a way that's almost impressive. These characters have been voiced by the same people across multiple films. There used to be warmth between them. Here it's gone. They're going through the motions, and honestly, who could blame them.

The previous film, which Mike Thurmeier also directed, wasn't exactly a high watermark, but it had at least some energy to it, some sense that people were present and engaged. This one doesn't even have that. It feels like the result of a contractual obligation rather than any creative impulse. Blue Sky were launching product into the void and hoping enough parents would buy the tickets out of franchise inertia. Some of us did. More fool us.

The saddest thing about Collision Course isn't that it's bad. Bad films happen. The saddest thing is how unnecessary it is. There's no story here that needed to be told, no character who needed to grow, no idea that demanded animation. It exists to make money, and it doesn't even do that with any particular conviction. Franchise fatigue this severe isn't just a creative failure, it's a kind of disrespect to the audience that grew up loving these characters.

One and a half stars. This wasn't a collision course. It was a crash landing, and the wreckage isn't even interesting to pick through.

Rating: ★½  | Year: 2016  | Watched: 2025-07-21

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Where to watch

Watch in the UK
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