The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild

Tonight, on Disney+, I saw “The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild,” which came out in January. How is this spin-off of a franchise that I think went downhill after a while?

Well, to start off, the film continues the adventures of the possum brothers Crash and Eddie who leave to find a place of their own. Together with the one-eyed weasel, Buck Wild, they face the dinosaurs who are in the Lost World.

There’s already not much of a point to continuing the “Ice Age” franchise if you’re not going to bring back the voice talents for the protagonists, but that hasn’t stopped Disney from going one step further with the former 20^th Century Fox franchise. Robert Kojder said in his review, “The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild is centered on possums Crash and Eddie learning how to think, seeking independence by going off on their own and mustering up a little bit of bravery among all the dead playing shenanigans. And while not everyone deserves their movie, it’s also hard to give the film a chance beyond the first 10 minutes, considering it looks like it was animated to be released on the PS2 instead of a streaming service like Disney+.”

Kojder continued, “For full disclosure, I did finish The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild, not coming with much to say about it is barely any effort has put into telling a story, let alone writing sharp dimwitted humor (this entry was written by a team of three and directed by John C. Donkin, who was making his debut although has served as a producer on several other installments of the franchise).” It begins with animated murals of woolly mammoth Ellie, voiced by Dominque Jennings, catching audiences up to speed on the franchise so far and the main protagonists before handing things over to the unfunny possums dreaming of a new life. They happen to destroy a glacier that runs the new family habitat, which causes Ellie and Manny (Sean Kenin Elias-Reyes) to have a little argument, further pushing Crash and Eddie (Vincent Tong and Aaron Harris) to go off on their own.

For whatever reason, Simon Pegg does return as eyepatch-wearing possum Buck, encountering Crash and Eddie discovering that a dinosaur with an oversized brain and superior intelligence, voiced by Utkarsh Ambudkar, is planning to take over the Lost World. Evidently, Buck wants to do it alone and use the other possums as an interference until zorilla Zee, voiced by Justina Machado, for some lessons in the benefits of teamwork. There are running jokes about becoming superheroes without special abilities to give you an idea of what the humor is going for here.

Again, “The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild” is just a poorly made movie with lazy voice actor replacements (they either sound bored or fail at something like their previous equals), no real interest in the adventure part (most of the traveling is done by animating a map watching the characters move from location to location until reaching the final fight location). Most of the jokes are poor attempts at making the characters ingenuously vacuous or referring to urinating (they even make one during the climactic fight). What little action there is nothing memorable with different weapons ranging from bamboo sticks to gas grenades. It’s a lot of effort that’s somehow really boring.

Kojder said, “The story can’t even be bothered to try and teach children not to let intelligence cloud one’s humanity and judgment (which appears to be the original intent considering the villain), let alone the usual be yourself and bravery checkmarks. Worst of all, it’s an eyesore to look at that people are going to assume came out in 2005 and not 2022.” There are plenty of reasons to be a Disney+ subscriber. “The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild” is not one of them. It should have gone the way of the dinosaur way back during its main production.

As you might have guessed, I didn’t like this film. I was just completely bored and annoyed by this film. I didn’t like it at all, and if you have not been a fan of the “Ice Age” franchise after the first one, then chances are you will loathe this spin-off. Don’t see it if you have a Disney+, but put on something else instead. I seriously think they need to stop with this franchise now because they have really driven this into the ground. Everybody can walk the dinosaur away from this franchise.

Look out tomorrow for the continuation of “Disney Month 2022.”