The First Modern Family

Review: The Croods

I had no real interest in seeing The Croods this weekend. But when I let my friend choose which movie we would see, he responded that he had to support his idol Nicolas Cage (I'm relatively sure his fandom is half sarcastic, half sincere).

So there I sat, about to watch a cartoon I thought looked as if it would be about as stereotypical as they come. After all, didn't we essentially know the entire plot from the commercials? - A cavegirl falls for a boy who leads their family to safety from the destruction of shifting continents, but whom her father, a skeptic of all things new, distrusts.

But what a surprise. Although the story in The Croods does indeed unfold as predicted, it does so in an earnest and surprisingly funny sort of way, following up its rather familiar and dull first half with a much more engaging and inventive second half in which we can't help but root for the characters as they face seemingly insurmountable odds.

"What is best, and riskiest, in this storytelling is the way that the sense of danger is palpable even when things are looking rosiest, and the impulse to hope is at its strongest when things look most dire" (Andrea Chase).

I usually think it is silly to pay millions of dollars for celebrities to voice animated characters; we never see them and their voices rarely make a difference. Of course, exceptions are out there (ie: Eddie Murphy as Donkey in the Shrek films), but rarely does an actor significantly contribute a vocal performance to a film worth so much money.

In the case of The Croods, the norm holds true. While i wouldn't say Nic Cage (National Treasure), Emma Stone (The Help), Ryan Reynolds (Buried), Cloris Leachman (The Last Picture Show), Clark Duke (Sex Drive), and Catherine Keener (The 40 Year Old Virgin), detract from the film in any way, it's not as though any of them made the movie what it was.

Yet, thanks to writers/directors Chris Sanders (How to Train Your Dragon) and Kirk De Micco (Space Chimps), what The Croods is happens to be a clever, if only a little formulaic, film which teaches kids and reminds the kids in all us adults to never be afraid of experiencing something new. When the year comes to an end, The Croods will likely be in the Top 3 animated films of the year (with the only real competition likely coming from Despicable Me 2 and Frozen. I can't say I'm sold on Monsters University yet).

The Final Word: 3/4 - Go buy a ticket.