THERE! I FIXED THE MOVIE! - Ice Age: Collision Course
First, we have to address the film's villains, the dino-birds. Out of all the Ice Age villains, these are the ones I'd call the most pointless. Think about it. The movie's entire hook centres on an impending asteroid set to hit the planet, but oh there's also some dinosaur birds who wanna eat eggs. They don't add a lot to the main conflict, they don't interact with any of the main heroes until their redemption aside from Buck and Granny, and their motivations of avoiding the asteroid are so dumb that the movie even calls them out on it. Don't get me wrong - Nick Offerman, Stephanie Beatriz and the third one are trying in their respective roles, but that doesn't fix how they add just plain nothing. So, this would mean I'd get rid of them entirely, right? Well, no. My suggestion is that they stay in the film, but only in the scene that establishes Buck. They steal the eggs, Buck does his song and dance number, they're out of the picture. Five minutes of dino-birds, done. But where does that leave the rest of the movie? What's the big threat that the heroes have to stop-you know where I'm going with this. Yes, I'm making the asteroid the main antagonist. Because let’s be real, the asteroid is enough. The movie doesn’t need any additional threats, like “will the herd survive the asteroid…while also dodging some dinosaurs that don’t even know them?” We have enough conflict as is, so why do we need more?
Next, we have the movie’s tone. The suspense of this movie is based on the threat of that asteroid killing ‘em all. Okay, we know it’s not gonna hit because…well, it’s the fifth Ice Age, but the audience should at least feel some tension, right? Not with this movie’s comedy. Any suspense this plot could have is thrown out the window as soon as we meet the herd and it just goes down from there, both in tension and in quality…mostly quality, because despite a couple chuckles here or there, the jokes are real bad. They’re not only really juvenile, annoying and anachronistic, but they kinda make the whole conflict a joke. For example, there’s a scene where the dino bird dad points to some birds getting hit by asteroids, but they undertone it with some bouncy cartoon sound effects. And in another, when Geotopia collapses, the same effect. With that in there, how is the audience meant to take the ordeal seriously? And to be honest, I wouldn't have that big a problem with this if the jokes were at least funny. So to start, I'm just gonna cut the pop-culture references. It wasn't funny when those vultures sang an Oliver! song in the second film, and they're not funny here. Next, I wanna really tone down on Julian. Throughout the movie, it's made clear that Manny completely hates the guy, and to be completely real, I'm on the side of Manny. Why? I'll let this meme explain.
Yeah, the guy's straight up really annoying. The sad thing is, there is a legit idea with this guy with him being optimistic about the apocalypse, and there is one nice scene between him and Peaches. This isn't even the fault of his voice actor, Adam DeVine - he's a good voice actor as evidenced through Green Eggs and Ham. The problem is the writing that the guy got is excruciating. So we really gotta tone down his comedy. Not entirely, there still needs to be a little levity, but enough so the conflict to actually be taken seriously.
My last fix involves the characters, or rather, the purpose they serve. I'll start off by saying if the character isn't Buck, Manny, or maybe Sid, then chances are they don't serve that much of a purpose. And nowhere is that more obvious than with Diego. Granted, I'm of the opinion that the team had no idea what to do with him after making it so he doesn't die in the first film, but in the other films, he at least had something to do. Here, there's nothing. They set up that he and Shira want to have kids, but they almost immediately forget about it. Half the time, you practically forget they're there. Wouldn't it make more sense to have that arc go on? Like, when Buck gets that pumpkin baby, the two could talk about that again? It's not much, but it is something. But then you have the new characters - seems to be an ongoing theme here, don't it? We've already gone over how I'd fix the dino-birds and Julian, so I'm gonna dedicate this portion to the Geotopians. Granted, Geotopia, as weird a concept as it is, looks absolutely gorgeous. But the characters all share the same problem: they have very little personality. Maybe if they fleshed them out just a touch, they'd end up being a little more interesting. Lastly, I wanna talk about the plot that Sid gets. Y'know how every Ice Age sequel has to involve one of the leads getting a love interest? This one, in my opinion, is the most rushed. We're introduced to Brooke and...yeah, they're just in love, that's it. I know the speed of it's meant to be the joke, but with how underwritten Brooke is, it seems like the only personality trait she has is "she likes Sid". So, what do I do? Well, Brooke's character design sets her up like the complete opposite of Sid. So, why don't I expand on that? That way, Sid would have to try to be with her rather than having that relationship fall out of the sky.
And those are my fixes! There may be some I've missed, and if so, please let me know, but to sum up, if you reduce the role of the dino-birds, tone down the comedy a bit, flesh out the new characters (as well as the old ones like Diego) and take the conflict a bit more seriously, then I declare I've fixed the movie. What do you think?
About the Author: JF the LOLZOR
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