“Ice Age: Collision Course” is the fifth film of the “Ice Age” series.

    Back in the snowy prehistoric wilds, life has been good for our old friends: Sid the sloth (John Leguizamo), Diego the saber-toothed tiger (Denis Leary), and, of course, Manny the mammoth (Ray Romano) and his wife, Ellie (Queen Latifah), whose daughter, Peaches (Keke Palmer), is now engaged to* a mastodon* named Julian (voiced by Adam Devine).

    Manny has serious doubts about marrying off his daughter to a hipster* who wants to take her far away. But that all seems like small beer* after Scrat the squirrel threatens the existence* of Earth by starting a meteor shower* that gives rise to one huge purple-flaming rock speeding toward the planet. It’s Buck, the one-eyed British weasel returning from the third “Ice Age” film, who understands the catastrophe*, and also thinks of a way to stop it: by traveling to the valley where meteors have always struck Earth and creating a magnetic space* that will attract and divert* this one.

    The visual effects of this film are great. The glaciers are bathed in a misty lavender glow, suggesting the most perfect sunset you’ve ever seen. And that feels right, since any variation on purple — the color of the asteroid’s flame — carries a hint of the sun setting on Earth itself. The whole look and feel of the Ice Age here is more complicated than it’s been: a symbiotic* dialogue between woodland and snow, with hidden pockets of splendor.

    When our heroes make their way to the lair* of Shangri Llama (Jesse Tyler Ferguson), the yoga-loving spiritual leader of Geotopia, the character turns out to be an oddly fey* stereotype, but the crystal paradise of youth he rules over is an ice castle of gigantic raw jewels that’s like candy for the eyes.

    Can our heroes pile enough of those crystals into a nearby volcano to stop nature’s end? By the finish, you’re excited to see them do it.

    (SD-Agencies)