#The Worst Film of a Tired Franchise

The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild is a dreadfully humorless installment in a CGI franchise that’s long run its course. The sixth Ice Age sequel has goofball possum brothers Crash and Eddie, both voiced by Vincent Tong, striking out on their own. Hijinks predictably ensue, but they’re not funny or interesting in any way. The film has a villain with a hideous, brain-bulging cranium that freaked me out. And introduces a weird zorilla, you read that right, that farts sleeping gas. It was also a mistake to omit Scrat, the acorn-loving squirrel/rat, and best series character by far.

The story picks up with Crash and Eddie destroying a habitat that the family herd worked hard to build. Manny (Sean Kenan), Sid (Skyler Stone), and Diego (Skyler Tone) have had enough of the brothers’ antics. They hint that it may be time for the possum terrors to move out. Ellie (Dominique Jennings) refuses to entertain the idea. Her brothers are inept dimwits that could never survive on their own. Crash and Eddie chafe at the criticism. They decide to sneak out and find their own bachelor pad.

Crash and Eddie bumble their way to the underground Lost World. They’re saved from becoming raptor snacks by the heroic, one-eyed weasel Buck Wild (Simon Pegg). The brothers idolize Buck and want to be his sidekicks. But there’s big trouble brewing in the Lost World. Orson (Utkarsh Ambudkar), a diabolical protoceratops with a gigantic brain, has an army of raptors hungry for a mammal buffet. Buck recruits his old partner, Zee (Justina Machado) the zorilla, to help them thwart Orson’s conquest.

The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild is obviously meant for young children. That said, I can’t imagine that anyone above dribbling toddlers would find this film entertaining. It’s basically a TV episode drawn out into a feature film. Buck Wild is a fun character, but the majority of scenes are Crash and Eddie focused. Their schtick gets old fast. They elicited a few chuckles in the previous iterations as bit players. The possums are just annoying as leads.

The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild wants to teach maturity, inclusion, and teamwork. Crash and Eddie have to grow up, while Ellie also has to let her brothers find their own way. Orson is a xenophobic, thinly-veiled racist with a god complex. He wants the Lost World for dinosaurs only. The filmmakers’ needed a better script to match their noble intentions. Their message gets a dull and blunt delivery.

I sat through this film waiting for Scrat to make an acorn-chasing appearance. His hilarious vignettes are sadly absent; along with the famous actors that normally voice the primary characters. Two minutes of Scrat would have been funnier than the entire narrative. The Ice Adventures of Buck Wild is a tremendous disappointment. The filmmakers have utterly failed to establish a spin-off franchise. There was never a better reason for cinematic global warming. The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild is a production of Blue Sky Studios, Bardel Entertainment, and Twentieth Century Animation. It is currently streaming globally on Disney+.

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