The Croods is the latest colourful animation from DreamWorks and co-director Chris Sanders, who made How to Train Your Dragon. That film was a real triumph for the studio, having brought in as much critical praise as it did box office dollars and proving the studio who previously churned out Shrek and Madagascar sequels could give Pixar a run for their money.
Sadly, the inventiveness of that film is nowhere to be seen in their latest outing as The Croods is a disappointing animated adventure that aims at the broadest audience possible and ends up rather flat and uninteresting because of it.
The story follows the titular family of cavemen who, under the control of their demanding father Grug (voiced by Nicolas Cage), spend their entire lives hunting during the day and running scared back to the safety of their caves at night. However, after their cave is destroyed they are forced to go on a long journey, which comes as a sort of “careful what you wish for” dream come true for daughter Eep (Emma Stone) who has always dreamed of escaping the confines of her sheltered life.
There’s no doubt the kiddies will be kept entertained by this frantic and visually vibrant animation, with slapstick humour abound as we follow this prehistoric family across a land filled with fantastical creatures and ever-treacherous situations for them to run around madly to get out of. The trouble is it’s all rather repetitive, both in its humour and head-smackingly obvious messages it rams down our throats.
Retreading a lot of the ground already covered a lot better decades ago in the Flintstones, the film seems utterly content to stick to as formulaic a path as possible even as it presents an animated world we’ve rarely seen on the big-screen (particularly dressed up in such expensive animated clothing). Returning to the slapstick well of characters being punched in the face, the family unit scraping their way out of creature attacks, the obligatory overly cute character in the form of a furry creature called Belt (voiced by director Sanders himself) aimed at making the kids in the audience go away incessantly quoting and even mother-in-law jokes that would make even the late-great Les Dawson think was monotonous, this is disappointingly safe for a film that’s partly themed around learning to evolve.
With a cast that includes Nicolas Cage, Emma Stone, Catherine Keener, Ryan Reynolds and Cloris Leachman, the movie at least has some quality voice talent that fit the characters well. However, they are ill-served by characters that are frankly annoying most of the time when they should be endearing. Their constant squabbling may be realistic to most real-life family trips – it’s trying ever so hard to make you relate – but it’s not exactly fun watching someone else’s family go through that.
There’s a certain charm to be had in seeing this pre-historic world explored in such a energetic and visually rich way, and there’s something to be said for having a female lead not be your typical Disney princess image. But The Croods’ initial appeal wears thin among a sea of formulaic jokes, seemingly endless hyperactive set-pieces and irritating characters contained within what is a surprisingly languorous and predictable story.
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