The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild – Film Review

John C. Donkin‘s The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild continues the escapades of the sub-zero heroes as they create more prehistoric pandemonium. Eager for a little independence, the thrill-seeking possum brothers Crash and Eddie set out to find a place of their own but soon find themselves trapped beneath the ice in a massive cave inhabited by dinosaurs. They are rescued by the one-eyed, adventure-loving weasel Buck Wild, and together, with the help of some new friends, embark on a mission to save the Lost World from dinosaur domination.

We all have our favorite animated movie franchise but honestly, who in the world has Ice Age as their favorite? I know that the first few films in the series are highly regarded and have gone down as somewhat of classics throughout the years but the series did not stay that good for long. Continental Drift was a fun and light-hearted movie although it was nowhere near as the previous three. That film, while being good, was the first sign that the studio was going to milk it into a franchise.

Collision Course was just an absolute disaster on all fronts. Seriously, even those who consider themselves big fans of this series don’t even like that movie. It felt so pointless and you could tell that it was made solely in the hopes of making some money because, at that point, the Ice Age franchise had already been greatly established. And, sure enough, the film grossed $408.5 million against a budget of $105 million.

But that was released all the way back in 2016, and ever since then, the series has sort of been dormant you could say. Nothing has happened and it seemed as though maybe – just maybe – the franchise had quietly died without any big shebang. However, fast-forward to now and we officially have a straight-to-streaming spin-off titled The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild. It’s interesting because the fan-favorite characters are all here but the film chooses to focus on the titular Buck Wild, who is one of the blandest characters in the series.

If you’re going to make an entire movie titled after this one character, you’d definitely want to make this character the most interesting character in the story but the whole time I was watching this movie, I just kept thinking “I wish I could see what Manny and Sid are doing right now”. I get the feeling that a ton of Ice Age fans are going to be thinking the same thing because these big fan-favorites are right there and yet the film never really does anything with them which was just so strange.

It’s also genuinely shocking to me just how poor the animation on display here is. The previous Ice Age movies looked terrific and it’s kind of hilarious because, as we all know, those are some old movies. The first one was released all the way back in 2002 and yet even that movie looks better than this brand-new movie using “modern technology”. How in the world does a film that was released twenty years ago look better than this?

There’s really nothing of merit to be found here aside from some solid vocal performances along the way. Simon Pegg definitely had a blast voicing the titular Buck Wild and it was a delight to hear his voice in this film but aside from that, I found myself getting bored to tears with this latest installment. It doesn’t have anything remotely entertaining for even younger audiences. If your little one is absolutely obsessed with Ice Age, then you should probably throw this on just to see what they think. My recommendation is to avoid this movie entirely. Trust me, your kids deserve better movies to watch.