'Ice Age: Collision Course' Is Cr-- WOW, THEY'RE STILL MAKING THESE STUPID MOVIES?!

The first Ice Age movie came out when there wasn’t many 3D animated movies yet.  It’s no beloved classic – at least, as far I’m concerned – but with not much benchmark around then, I really found it a good, re-watchable film.  Through the years, more and more 3D animated films have been made, and we’ve seen how far – especially through Disney and Pixar – the medium could achieve in both visual and storytelling standpoints.  Meanwhile, all this time, Ice Age has been spewing sequels, getting more and more stupidly over-the-top, boring, lazy, and unfunny with each new installment.

It has been about a decade and a half since the first movie, and it perplexed me that this franchise is still alive when it’s only getting worse – and this latest one, Ice Age: Collision Course, is the worst yet.  But I did some Googling, and it finally made sense to me: these movies might have been terrible but they yield profit – much profit.  Ice Age (the good one) grossed $383,257,136 from a budget of just $59 million.  Ice Age: The Meltdown (the passable but forgettable sequel) made $660,940,780 – almost double of the first one – from an insignificantly higher budget of $80 million.  Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (when it jumped over the shark and killed the integrity of this franchise) made $886,686,817 out of $90 million – its best box office performance.  And Ice Age: Continental Drift grossed $877,244,782 out of $95 million.  These impressive return-on-investment numbers have made Ice Age a prominent franchise despite the inferior quality of its films.  Besides, as far as Hollywood is concerned, making money is more important than making worthwhile films.

Again, Ice Age: Collision Course is the franchise’s worst.  The plot is also its most ridiculous, which now involves an alien spacecraft, a world-ending asteroid heading to earth, prophetic monoliths, and immortality-giving space rocks.  Subplots include a trio of dromaeosaurs set on revenge against Buck; the upcoming wedding of Manny and Ellie’s daughter, Peaches; Diego and Shira scaring away kids; and Sid’s desperate search for love (since he’s the only one among the gang that doesn’t have a partner yet) – all of which I didn’t care for.  In fact, its forgettable, substandard narrative didn’t make me care a bit at all.  It’s an incredibly stupid movie.

Some might reason that this movie is meant for kids anyway.  That’s true.  But there are a lot of better alternatives out there.  Maybe let them watch something that would be more likely to make them think, even subtly; or teach them a moral; or incite their imagination; or not kill their brain cells too much, at the very least.  Let Ice Age: Collision Course be a last option.  Heck, watching the Scooby Gang team up with WWE superstars pretending to be Death Race drivers – dumb and ridiculous that may sound – is even more preferable.

This franchise needs to die already – which might finally happen after Collision Course.  It still grossed about three times its budget, but having the franchise’s highest budget yet – $105 million – and failing to replicate the outrageous ROI rate of the previous movies, its studio might finally be discouraged to make another sequel.