Quick Reviews: The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild

To me, Ice Age was one of those franchises that I never really liked as a kid, yet I remember seeing those movies a lot. From the fart-based humour and the animation that puts the first Toy Story to shame, Ice Age never stuck out to me as a contender in the animation industry. Though I do have to admit, the characters were always the best part of the franchise. Since the death of Blue-Sky Studios back in 2021, it was thought that Ice Age would never see the light of day while Disney owned the brand. But now in 2022, a new movie is available to stream on the Disney + platform. The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild. What can I say about this movie, well...it’s definitely a movie? The plot is based around the two possums from the original franchise, Crash and Eddie. They want to be free from the restraints of being in a herd and sneak off to join the underground lost world. However, it doesn’t go to plan when an evil, big-brained dino seeks to destroy all the mammals and make the lost world a strictly dino area.

In the lost world they encounter Buck Wild, introduced in the second Ice Age movie. Buck explains his superhero past, along with his tragic story of how he lost his team. Together, the group try to bring harmony to the Lost World and stop Orson once and for all. Originally when this project was announced I thought it would be a tv show, it definitely looked like one. Yet, the whole runtime is only an hour and twenty-two minutes, and honestly it should have been a tv show. You could have got way more if it were based on episodes instead of a movie, aiming for a tone similar to the Looney tunes or even the Mickey Mouse shorts from 2013. Going back to the animation, it’s clearly unfinished. Either Blue Sky’s didn’t get any time to finish the project or Disney created it really quickly just to throw onto their streaming platform and to appease any Ice Age fans out there. If Disney had spent just a little more time on this, or better yet not kill the company that made it, then the animation could have looked way better. There are some scenes here and there that look great but it’s mainly how they’ve done the lighting or the backgrounds, it’s never to do with the characters. Let’s get the biggest thing out of the room, none of the original cast have returned to reprise their roles but Simon Pegg, and it shows.

When the movie first started something felt off about the voices, but I couldn’t put my finger on it, then it eventually became clear that these weren’t the original voices. I’ll give credit where credit is due, Diego and Manny sound practically identical to their original counterparts, but Cid does not. And with a voice that iconic, it’s hard to let go. Come on Disney, you had John Leguizamo for Encanto, you’re telling me you couldn’t have just asked him to do a few Cid lines; it’s not like he’s in the movie that much anyway. The villain is pretty weak, he’s not compelling and I don’t care for him. Orson’s voice irritates me more than the entire personalities of the possums. His motives are lackluster, and his lines are awful. And that goes for most of the characters, the script for this movie is bad, it’s very bad. There are some good lines once in a while, I especially like: “I started thinking.” - Eddie “How could you do this to me.” - Crash Buck also has some good lines, but most of the time it’s Simon Pegg’s line delivery that saves it. The ending wasn’t anything worth raving about, nothing completely memorable but a lot of call backs to the past movies.

All in all, if you’re looking for a movie to put on to entertain the kids, this will do. It’s mindless fun, comedy based around farts and animation that looks like it came from 2004. Ice Age the Adventures of Buck Wild gets a 2 out of 5 possums from me. Ice Age the Adventures of Buck wild is available to stream on Disney +.