The Ice Age franchise has come a long way since the first film’s 2002 debut. It gained enough of an audience to span a considerable number of films. With the latest The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild now streaming on Disney+, here’s a recap of the films and which one is the best.
The animated franchise follows a group of prehistoric animals, namely Manny, Sid and Diego, and their adventures together while witnessing some of Earth’s big prehistoric geological moments. They are also always accompanied by smaller parallel storylines of the fan-favorite Scrat, a squirrel obsessed with collecting acorns and providing some of the funniest moments in the movies.
How many Ice Age movies are there?
The first film takes place about 20,000 BC when Earth was about to enter its Ice Age. A group of humans is following a convoy of prehistoric animals migrating to survive when it is attacked by a pack of saber-toothed tigers, leaving a small child behind. It’s up to an enormous mammoth named Manny (Ray Romano), a lazy sloth called Sid (John Leguizamo) and one of the attacking tigers, Diego (Denis Leary), to track and return this child to their parents. The group quickly forms an unusual bond between each other, leaving behind what separates them and embracing what binds them together.
The film’s success was quickly followed by Ice Age: The Meltdown (2004), where the characters face extinction over the massive meltdown of ice and the huge landscape changes that are mostly created by Scrat and his quest for acorns. The movie introduces Ellie (Queen Latifah), Manny’s love interest, and her possum companions, Crash (Seann William Scott) and Eddie (Josh Peck). The Meltdown was another successful entry, and the characters were bound to return in Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009), where they discover a secret passage that leads to an underground undiscovered world where dinosaurs still exist. In this chapter, audiences are introduced to Buck (Simon Pegg), the one-eyed adventurous surviving weasel who hunts dinosaurs intently. The film also introduces Scratte, a female squirrel and Scrat’s love interest.
Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012) soon followed. In a geological cataclysmic event provoked by Scrat, of course, Manny gets separated from his family on a floating iceberg with Diego, Sid and his feisty grandmother, Granny. They meet Captain Gutt (Peter Dinklage), terror of the seas, who wishes to turn them into slaves and stop their attempts to return home. Ice Age: Collision Course was to be the last in the series focusing on Manny, Sid and Diego. The installment takes the franchise to a whole new level, finding Scrat in space, once again causing ‘scratastrophe’ and forcing the characters to survive impending doom.
Disney+ recently released the latest film, The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild, focusing on characters Crash and Eddie, who join Buck Wild in their own adventure, returning to the lost prehistoric world first introduced in Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. In 2011, there was also a short television special titled Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas, with the characters celebrating the Christmas spirit.
Which is the Best Ice Age Movie?
While the franchise enjoyed a long run in theaters, the increasing number of films was accompanied by a decrease in love from viewers, specifically critics, which is in itself a fascinating curiosity. The first Ice Age stands at 77 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, a modest number paralleled by the audience’s 82 percent. But the consensus decreases with each entry until Adventures of Buck Wild, which currently fares as the lowest of the franchise with 17 percent. On the other hand, while also decreasing in percentage, the audience score is slightly higher for the first few entries, which may explain the franchise’s success. The last two films, Collision Course and Adventures of Buck Wild, definitely failed to enchant viewers.
Despite a few rumors, there is no official statement about another Ice Age film. However, Disney+ is about to launch Ice Age: Scrat Tales, a six-episode animated series of shorts focusing on the unlucky squirrel. The whole Ice Age movie franchise is streaming on Disney+, and Scrat Tales will be available on April 13th.
