The Croods are a caveman family made up of a rebellious daughter, an overprotective father, a brainless brother, a caring mother, a wild child and a crotchety mother-in-law, and they are here to entertain any child that might find “The Flintstones” a little too ancient.
The voice cast Emma Stone (“The Amazing Spiderman”), Nicolas Cage (“Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance”), Clarke Duke (“Sex Drive”), Catherine Keener (“The 40-Year-Old Virgin”) and Cloris Leachman (“Raising Hope”), do great voice work in their respective roles.
As a family man, overprotective father Crug has done his best to keep his family safe in their cave despite his daughter Eep’s desire to wander around. But the world is changing, Pangea is breaking apart and the family is struggling to survive these changes. In comes a nomad named Guy, voiced by Ryan Reynolds (“Safe House”), who seems to know more about the world and reluctantly guides the family to safety. The Croods are stationary Neanderthals, so Guy must spend a large portion of the movie teaching them how to use different tools.
Story isn’t “The Croods” main strength. It was the goal of the filmmakers to take this family that we slowly come to like and put them in variety of wonderfully animated environments that are as colorful as they are dangerous. The entire plot of the movie can be summed up with the sentence, “They want to go to that mountain.”
And that’s the main problem with “The Croods.” Like many Dreamworks films, it puts visuals entirely over story. A visual sequence is nice when followed by something that moves the plot along. “The Croods” opts to show action sequences that lead to montage of slapstick jokes that lead to action sequence, and it becomes a little tiresome.
The movie finally finds some depth towards the end by putting the heroes in a lot of danger, but by then it’s not enough to make up for the first two-thirds of the movie. “The Croods” is enjoyable enough for kids, and there are even a few jokes for adults to appreciate, but by the end of 2013 neither parents nor children will remember they even saw it.
“The Croods” is a nice option for the family. But parents could easily save a few bucks by sitting the kids down in front of the television and putting on ‘The Flintstones.”
