The Croods (2013)

The Croods (2013)

5/10

Starring the voices of

Nicolas Cage

Ryan Reynolds

Emma Stone

Catherine Keener

Directed by Kirk DeMicco and Chris Sanders

The Croods can be said to have come out a little crude, I felt it was too rough around the edges and the Midas touch of Chris Sanders (which showed up in Lilo & Stich (2002) and he is the man behind the Bolt (2008)story before he left Disney and joined Dreamworks to make the masterpiece How To Train Your Dragon (2010), which he will also be involved in the later sequels of it) is losing its touch after all.

It is not that The Croods didn’t have the family fun package because it did and it also had the whole family warmth that I expected from an animation targeted at young audience, but the movie was just too primitive, they went overboard with the whole caveman idea, I actually got tired of the stone age, something The Flintstones have not been able to achieve. The movie has many fast paced scenes, a lot of action (adventure) to make you sit up and not be bored, but at the end, it felt weak in the area of emotional sentiment something Pixar has mastered, which makes the characters memorable. The CGI was ok, but the movie also showed lack in the area of the character development, I actually didn’t see any reason to like anybody I saw on the screen.

The plot is about change and people’s failure to accept it. The Croods are a caveman family that has managed to survive the harsh conditions that they live in, only because they believe that to be curious or to desire change is to desire death.

But things changed when another Stone Age man passes by their cave, he is more advanced than they are and he knows how to make fire. Now The Croods have a problem, this man tells them it is time to move because where they are, is going to be gone soon as climatic changes are affecting the earth’s crust. But The Croods don’t want to move, except for one, she happens to have developed feelings for the young genius and propels the family to follow him.

The Croods is the first animation film from DreamWorks Animation to be distributed by 20th Century Fox, since the end of their distribution deal with Paramount Pictures in 2012 with Rise of the Guardians.

My take on this movie is that, it could have been better but it isn’t. The Croods is a family movie nothing more or spectacular I don’t see this having an Oscar nomination.