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 & Stitch (2002) and Bolt (2008) before he left Disney and joined DreamWorks to make the masterpiece How to Train Your Dragon (2010), which he’s also involved in for its sequels) is losing its touch after all. That said, the movie is still watchable.

It’s not that The Croods didn’t have the family fun package—because it did—and it also had the family warmth I expected from an animation targeted at a young audience. But the movie was just too primitive. They went overboard with the whole caveman idea, and I actually got tired of the Stone Age—something The Flintstones hasn’t even managed to achieve. The movie has many fast-paced scenes and a lot of action (adventure) to keep you sitting up and not bored, but in the end, it felt weak in the area of emotional sentiment—something Pixar has mastered, which makes their characters memorable. The CGI was okay, but the movie also showed a lack in character development. I 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 they live in, only because they believe that to be curious or to desire change is to desire death.

But things change when another Stone Age man passes by their cave. He’s more advanced than they are and knows how to make fire. Now, The Croods have a problem. This man tells them it’s 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 animated 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 getting an Oscar nomination.