Ice Age: Collision Course

"Ice Age" has to be the most consistently passable animated franchise in history: Five films in, all of them seen by yours truly, and I've never once left the theater in an angry huff or exaggerated annoyance. To be fair, I've never left the theater on a cloud of my own delight, either. I've left with a shrug each time, forgetting the film long before I've made it back home, wondering how many years will pass before the next installment comes along to gobble up box office dollars and pondering whether it will finally be the one where all the characters go extinct.

However, as long as these movies keep making profit, the extinction will never come (the second film was called "Age of Extinction," and they seemed to dodge that bullet fine). "Ice Age: Collision Course" is the fifth film in the series, and probably the laziest to date, but it still manages to provide a tolerable enough time at the movies that to hate it feels excessive, and to love it or even like it feels superfluous as well. It just kind of sits there on screen, offering occasional diversions that will keep kids captivated and adults not wanting to kill themselves. Sometimes, when you're that latter, that's all you can really hope for when it comes to the fifth film in a series about talking prehistoric mammals.

For anyone who saw Blue Sky Animation's wonderful "The Peanuts Movie" last year, you've already seen the first few minutes of "Collision Course" through the short film that preceded "Peanuts." It involved the squirrel, Scrat, and his endless pursuit to retrieve his beloved acorn. Hands down, the Scrat segments have been the best part about all of the "Ice Age" movies, pure visual slapstick that never fails to delight. Here, Scrat is propelled into space, where animated hijinks ensue, setting a meteor on a collision course that threatens to kill off the franchise's characters (who, unfortunately, make up the majority of this film).

Manny (Ray Romano), Diego (Denis Leary) and Sid (John Leguizamo) -- and too many side characters to mention -- must embark on a ho-hum adventure arc to save the day. Throw in countless subplots -- Manny dealing with his losing his daughter to her boyfriend, Sid's romantic pursuits, a team of predator pterodactyls -- and you certainly have a bit of an overloaded mess, one that at times feels like it should have gone straight to DVD as opposed to getting a theatrical release.

The film just goes through the motions with periodically funny moments and bizarrely diverse references -- from hashtags to Fall Out Boy to "Bridge of Frankenstein" to "Planet of the Apes" -- but it never becomes a complete and utter disaster.

It just never quite transcends the ordinary, either.