In an incredible tale of extreme pre-historic squirreling longevity, Manny, Sid and Diego returned in Summer 2016 with their fifth adventure, Ice Age: Collision Course, with Scrat in tow for all his nut hiding indiscretions. Incredibly, it’s been fourteen years since the first film in the series arrived in 2002 and with Ice Age: Continental Drift preceding the latest installment in 2012 there are no signs of the extinction ever coming to pass any time soon for the Blue Sky Studios animated movie series.
Release date
Cinema:
The film had a UK release date of Friday the 15th July 2016 on the big screen, a little ahead of the US release on the 22nd July 2016. As with the more recent previous entries in the series, Collision Course was available to watch in both 2D and 3D. Building on the box office success of the previous films in the series, and the huge affection for the characters it has built up, the new film went on to be one of the big animated hits of the summer. It was released on the same weekend in the UK as the all-women Ghostbusters reboot and with a lot of criticism for the ghoulish reincarnation it’s fairly easy to see why it turned out to be an icy weekend all round.
DVD, Blu-ray and digital download:
Collision Course has been confirmed for a DVD and Blu-ray release date in the UK on the 5th December 2016, so it’ll arrive just in term for stocking-filler fun. You’ll be able to buy it on digital download a week earlier on the 25th November with the rental release available on the same date as the DVD and Blu-ray.
Story
The plot gets a new and dangerous lease of life when Scrat manages to stumble on an abandoned space ship while trying to find a hiding place for his infamous nut. When he inadvertently pilots the ship into outer space he triggers a series of events in our solar system that results in meteor fire raining down on the planet, endangering all of the life we’ve come to know and love from the series.
As the terrifying destruction pierced the sky, Manny, Sid and Diego and crew must join forces and set off on another great adventure to escape the devestating Fire storm from outer space. With the help of a few new faces and the return of Buck from Ice Age: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs, the random band of brothers, sisters, mothers and lovers will need to find a new have in all of the turmoil around them.
Cast
Ray Romano (Ice Age: Continental Drift), John Leguizamo (American Ultra) and Dennis Leary (Zootropolis) are all back again voicing the characters Manny the woolly mammoth, Sid the ground sloth and Diego the saver toothed smiledon. Queen Latifa (22 Jump Street) returns as Manny’s mammoth other half Ellie and Jennifer Lopez will once again voice Diego’s new lady smiledon love Shira, following their end credits get together in Ice Age: Continental Drift.
The cast also includes Seann William Scott and Josh Peck as possum brothers Crash and Eddie, Simon Pegg (Star Trek Beyond) as one-eyed weasel Buck, who missed the action in Continental Drift, Keke Palmer as Manny and Ellie’s daughter Peaches and Wanda Sykes as Sid’s Granny. Stephanie Beatriz, Adam DeVine, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Max Greenfield (New Girl), Jessie J, Nick Offerman (Hotel Transylvania 2), Melissa Rauch (The Big Bang Theory), Michael Strahan and Neil de Grasse Tyson (Zoolander 2) complete the lineup.
Ice Age: Collision Course DVD and Blu-ray special features
Needless to say, Scrat gets a lot of attention where the DVD and Blu-ray special features are concerned, but in all fairness he doesn’t get that much air time during the actual films, so he probably deserves it seeing as he’s a big part of the success of the Ice Age series. Special features include:
- Scrat: Spaced Out Mini-Movie
- Ice Age: The Story So Far
- Scratasia: Scrat’s Solo Adventures
- Mysteries of the Scratazons
- Star Signs of the Animal Kingdom
- The Science of It All: deGrasse Tyson deBunks explains the science behind the film
- Figaro Sing-along
- Image gallery
Production
Mike Thurmeier and Galen T. Chu have directed the film with Lori Forte down as producer and writing credits going to Michael J. Wilson. It’s the latest animated outing for Blue Sky Studios (The Peanuts Movie), which made it’s movie debut with the very first Ice Age film.
First impressions
Ice Age films are always a lot of fun, but from the look of the trailer below, Collision Course could be the most action packed installment from the series. With the sky literally falling in around them, the herd have got a pretty big challenge to find safety once again and it’s going to look very impressive. It’s just a shame there’s not going to be a 3D Blu-ray release to showcase the visuals in all their glory.
