Ice Age: Collision Course Review: Thaw and Order

Whats the use of getting all pissy about a kiddie cartoon? Watch Ice Age: Collison Course and see how you feel. The fifth entry in the Ice Age series is a loud, lazy, laugh-starved cash grab that cynically exploits its target audience (I use the term advisedly) by serving them scraps and calling it yummy. Even two-year-olds can see through the hustle.

You cant blame the animators, who do what they can to spark the visuals. But screenwriters Michael Wilson, Michael Berg and Yoni Brenner are running on less than empty. The script is basically fumes, though no one can top these guys for finding words that rhyme with duty or poop or butt or penis. Things started going south for this once clever series with 2012s Ice Age: Continental Drift, which now seems Pixar-level inspired compared to this one. Every gag feels recycled. Even Scrat the squirrel, the most popular character in the franchise, wears out his welcome.

And the plot? Would you believe that Manny, the woolly mammoth voiced by Ray Romano, has forgotten his wedding anniversary. Boy, is his wife Ellie (Queen Latifah) mad. Neither one likes the loser (Adam Devine) their daughter Peaches (Keke Palmer) is dating. And, oh yeah, a meteor shower is headed to earth to kill them all, including Sal the sloth (John Leguizamo), his sass-talkin Granny (Wanda Sykes), sabertooths Diego (Denis Leary) and Shira (Jennifer Lopez) and a new character, a dino-bird voiced the great Nick Offerman, who I once believed could not make a false move. I was wrong. After five minutes of this candy-colored swill, youll be cheering the meteor on and fighting the urge to projectile vomit.