Sommerleigh Pollonais, Senior Writer
Plot: The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild continues the escapades of the possum brothers Crash and Eddie who set out to find a place of their own. Together with the one-eyed weasel, Buck Wild, they face the dinosaurs who inhabit the Lost World.
Review: I’ve never been the biggest fan of the Ice Age movies; the only one I can remember clearly is the first (I vaguely remember enjoying the fifth one and that was due in large part to Wanda Sykes hilarious turn as Sid’s Granny). Compared to the stellar animated films produced by Pixar, DreamWorks and Illumination this franchise has always been average at best and a lot of its best qualities lie with its talented voice cast. But that’s just my opinion and say what you will, the Ice Age movies have their fan base with the sequels managing to turn a nice profit for Blue Sky Studios and 20th Century Fox.
But even the most devoted of fans have GOT to admit, spinoff film The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild (which I’ll just call Buck Wild going forward) is by and far the worst of the bunch. And after watching it I think maybe it’s time this particular franchise goes extinct.
Let’s start with the fact none of the main voice cast that’s known to these movies have returned. Instead of Ray Romano, Dennis Leary, John Leguizamo and Queen Latifah we get Sean Kenin, Skyler Stone, Jake Green and Justina Machado as Manny, Diego, Sid and Ellie respectively. You know you’re off to a rough start when the people who made these characters memorable have called it quits.
That’s not to say these newcomers do a terrible job; it’s just obvious that we have people TRYING to sound like the original actors and focusing so much on that they make no emotional impact whatsoever. The only voice actor that DOES return is Simon Pegg as Buck first introduced in the third film Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. And I’ll just come right out and say it—I think eighty per cent of this movie’s budget must’ve went to paying Pegg’s salary because this has got to be the ugliest looking animated movie I’ve seen in some time. And considering the Ice Age characters aren’t the most attractive to begin with, that’s saying something!
The villain here is a triceratops with a big brain who thinks mammals don’t belong in the “new world”. Basically they try to shoehorn in a message about pro-immigration and inclusivity that feels more awkward than a priest at a strip club. Buck Wild looks like it’s trying to emulate Puss in Boots with its dashing hero and supposedly smart villain who has a personal vendetta against him, but where Puss in Boots had genuine charm and funny moments everything here feels like it was a first draft instead of a properly finished story.
You can’t even use the excuse that it’s “straight to streaming” (it is on Disney+) because Hotel Transylvania Part Four just came out a week or two ago and that still manages to equal the animated quality of its theatrical counterparts. This looks like it was made in the 90s, the early 90s to be precise. The story also ignores a lot of what came before so characters are missing and never accounted for. And most of the film follows Ellie’s possum brothers Crash and Eddie. If you found them adorable then you’ll probably have no issue with that; I always found them annoying and unfunny so you can imagine how much “fun” I had with this tale.
Now most people use the excuse, “it’s made for kids”, but as a big kid myself I don’t even see Buck Wild keeping the attention of a toddler much less a gaggle of seven-year olds. Not funny or fun to look at, if animated laughs is what you’re looking for you can do a whole lot better than this soulless excuse for a sequel.
Sommer’s Score: 4 out of 10
So are you a fan of the Ice Age films? Which is your favourite? And you can check out more animated comedy content below:
Sommerleigh of the House Pollonais. First of Her Name. Sushi Lover, Queen of Horror Movies, Comic Books and Binge Watching Netflix. Mother of two beautiful black cats named Vader and Kylo. I think eating Popcorn at the movies should be mandatory, PS4 makes the best games ever, and I’ll be talking about movies until the zombie apocalypse comes.
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