The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild: Dino slight

The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild (2022) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG, and needlessly, for action and mild language

Available via: Disney+

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.28.22

Madcap humor notwithstanding, the Ice Age series has been noteworthy for each film’s warm emphasis on family: a focus that I’m certain has maintained the franchise’s popularity.

 

Danger-addicted possums Crash and Eddie, left, return to the Lost World and renew
their acquaintance with one-eyed weasel Buck, while sparking a new friendship with
an impressively resourceful zorilla named Zee.

Humor always flows best from well-developed characters, and it was easy to fall in love with an unusual family unit originally comprising cynical woolly mammoth Manny, reformed sabre-toothed tiger Diego, and goofy, good-natured sloth Sid: each either abandoned by his own kind, or believing himself the last of his kind.

Over time, Manny lucked into meeting orphaned female woolly mammoth Ellie, who initially believed herself to be a possum, having been raised alongside possum “brothers” Crash and Eddie.

 

Sidebar hilarity — essentially mini-cartoons occasionally interrupting the core story — was provided by Scrat, a sabre-toothed squirrel forever on the pursuit of acorns (always with catastrophic results).

 

Despite the constant bickering between various members of this unlikely group, we never doubted their mutual devotion: repeatedly proved, over the course of subsequent adventures.

 

This newest entry, sixth in the series, messes with the formula. As can be assumed from the title, the focus is on Crash, Eddie and notably Buck, the sanity-challenged, one-eyed weasel introduced in 2009’s Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. Manny, Ellie and the others are sidelined.

 

The result — in the hands of director John C. Donkin and writers Jim Hecht, Will Schifrin and Ray Delaurentis — is an entertaining, adventure-laden romp, but the inter-personal warmth is lacking. 

 

There’s also no sign of Scrat, which is absolutely unacceptable. An Ice Age film without Scrat is like a Despicable Me entry without Minions.

 

This difference in tone and approach, and particularly the absence of heart, can be explained by missing-in-action producer/director Chris Wedge, and the fact that the marvelous animation studio he co-founded — Blue Sky Studios, which created all the previous Ice Age films — was shut down in April 2021, following its 2019 acquisition by Disney. 

 

Ergo, this new film — for better or worse — is an Ice Age entry as “adjusted” by Disney. Fans familiar with the Blue Sky “look” will immediately notice that the animation here isn’t nearly as lush. 

 

This less expensive approach also explains the fact that all the original voice actors — Ray Romano (Manny), John Leguizamo (Sid), Queen Latifah (Ellie), Denis Leary (Diego), Sean William Scott (Crash) and Josh Peck (Eddie) — have been replaced by lesser-known individuals who sound remarkably like their predecessors.

 

(Seriously, Sean Kenin’s spot-on imitation of Romano is positively spooky.)

 

All that having been said…

 

Manny, Ellie (Dominique Jennings), Sid (Jake Green) and Diego (Skyler Stone) are enjoying life in Snow Valley, but Crash (Vincent Tong) and Eddie (Aaron Harris) are restless; the environment simply isn’t exciting enough to satisfy their fondness for extreme stunts. The overly protective Ellie doesn’t help matters; as the possums grouse to each other, “She’s smothering us with reasonable advice.”

 

With the unchecked exuberance of reckless teenagers (which we assume they are), Crash and Eddie return to the one place that guarantees the peril they crave: the underground “Lost World” of dinosaurs introduced in the aforementioned third film.

 

Unfortunately, things have become much more dangerous since their previous visit. The truce orchestrated by Buck (Simon Pegg, the sole returning voice actor) — which finds mammals and dinosaurs co-existing for their mutual benefit — is threatened by the evil Orson (Utkarsh Ambudkar), a mutant, big-brained Protoceratops who controls an army of nasty velociraptors.

 

In a bid to stifle evolution, Orson wants the Lost World to be occupied solely by dinosaurs, and he’ll cheerfully eradicate every mammal in the process. (“Dinos rule, mammals drool,” he snarls.)

 

Crash and Eddie are hopelessly out of their depth; for that matter, even Buck finds the odds overwhelming. Enter the sleek, athletic Zee (Justina Machado), a zorilla (striped polecat) with an awesome array of weapons stashed in her Batman-like utility belt. 

 

“I’m a mammal on a mission,” she tells the awe-struck Crash and Eddie, “to bring equality and justice to the Lost World!”

 

It’s nice to add a kick-ass female character to this male-dominated franchise. (Manny and Ellie’s daughter Peaches seems to have followed Scrat into oblivion.) Zee easily steals the film, Machado giving her just the right blend of snark and sassy coolness.

 

The subsequent confrontations, melees and hair’s-breadth escapes are orchestrated with pizzazz by Donkin, who keeps things moving at a brisk clip. Pianist/composer Batu Sener, in his feature film debut, enhances the action with an equally lively score.

 

The naïve and forever clueless Crash and Eddie supply an endless stream of wisecracks, and Ambudkar makes Orson a truly nasty little megalomaniac. And, yes, Manny and the others find their way back into the Lost World. (Eventually.)

At an economical 81 minutes, this film knows when to get off the stage. It’s fun and lively, and I’ve no doubt children will be entertained. But there’s very little here for older viewers, who likely will miss the heart and soul that Wedge and Blue Sky brought to this franchise.