A family change meets a planetary emergency
Manny is already worried about his daughter Peaches getting married when Scrat's latest mishap sends a much larger problem towards Earth. The herd must leave familiar ground and respond to an approaching asteroid. The film places a parent's difficulty with change beside a threat that makes staying where things are comfortable impossible.
That combination gives the adventure two scales. The asteroid creates an objective everyone can recognise, while the wedding concerns a future Manny cannot control in the same way. Watching how those concerns coexist is a useful way to follow the family material without expecting the cosmic events to operate as a realistic account of astronomy or prehistory.
The herd and the returning voices
Ray Romano voices Manny, John Leguizamo voices Sid and Denis Leary voices Diego. Queen Latifah voices Ellie, Keke Palmer voices Peaches and Adam DeVine voices Julian. Simon Pegg returns as Buck. Mike Thurmeier directs, with screenplay credits for Michael Wilson, Michael Berg and Yoni Brenner; Blue Sky Studios produced the animation.
Collision Course is the fifth Ice Age feature. Earlier films establish the herd and its family relationships, but the immediate problem is straightforward enough for a new viewer to understand. A brief introduction to Manny, Sid and Diego is more useful than requiring a complete chronological marathon before this particular adventure.
Choosing it for younger viewers
The US PG classification cites action, peril and mild rude humour. The ninety-four-minute running time is shorter than many of the live-action films in the collection, though families should still consider how a child responds to disaster scenarios and characters in danger.
A discussion afterwards could ask why Manny finds his daughter's independence frightening even before the larger threat arrives. Another could compare the different ways members of a group contribute when none can solve the whole problem alone. Those questions connect the broad comedy and adventure with a recognisable experience of family change, while allowing the film's impossible events to remain playful fantasy.
