The Croods (2013)

The Croods (PG) - Review

"A Pre-Modern Family Film"

Cartoons.  They have been abundant since the turn of the century, evolving from the Sunday funnies into two distinct yet familiar art forms.  The Disney art fairytale vs the Warner Brothers Loony Tune vaudeville.  Personal taste aside, both genres are still relevant art forms today and directly impact our modern 3d animation world (Pixar vs Dreamworks being a prime example).  While Pixar pours their efforts into highbrow ideals and kid/family friendly messages while pushing the creativity to appeal to artier (and sometimes overly pretentious) audience, Dreamworks' pictures often go for mass appeal entertainment, the more street level slapstick fun that once was the domain of Bugs and Daffy.

The Croods is Dreamworks newest effort, a funny dusty flick with no pretensions of grandeur despite the obvious top shelf artistry and effort that went into its crafting everything but the script.  The Croods are a prehistoric family without the footpedal cars or the dinosaur bulldozers, they are squat, rough and tumble and in a dangerous world.  They cringe in fear within their cave for days, chancing the outside world only when their hunger becomes too great.  Their father is voiced by Nicholas Cage, and he is the glue that keeps this movie moving (comedically and emotionally).  His teenage daughter has just broken the rules and left the cave, discovering her inner courage and a cute (and more evolved) boy friend to fawn over.  This coincides with tectonic upheavals that require the Croods to leave their shelter and strike off in pursuit of safety and attempt to keep the family unit intact (with the boy in tow since he knows the secret of fire).

The film chugs to a slow start, and strives to be funny and very cartoony while also being much more realistic than the Flintstones about what our cave ancestors lives were really like.  The creature designs are pure fantasy, unabashedly cute yet bloodthirsty (much the same as their previous highwater effort How To Train Your Dragon).  The color palette and landscapes have a wonderful Suessian flair, the fire and water effects show how technically astute Dreamworks has become and how they are beholden to none in their visual ability, not even to the almighty Oscarbait of Pixar.  But in the end it is a funny silly little cartoon with an overwrought "nothing to fear but fear itself" message falsely tattooed on its forehead and a rather expensive looking one at that.  The 3D is again unnecessary, the animation fine, the art exemplary, and yet the script just drags along the characters (some of whom like the Mother who get zero characterization, leaving the movie to be an uncomplex triangle between Father > Daughter > Boyfriend) through a process intending to evolve them emotionally to a life free of fear and new beginnings.  Stuffed with action set pieces which mostly work, prehistoric humor that is ironically polished and uncrude, gorgeous backdrops and effects and interesting character designs.  Now if only they'd dial back the MESSAGE to standable levels, its almost drowning out all the fun.

The Croods isn't the thick browed simpleton many are expecting.  There is a powerful strong heart pumping here, of fatherhood and expanding your horizons, and Nick Cage is let loose just the right amount to give his cavefather the crazy, groovy hip insanity, and that infuses the rest of the movie with a wild sense of fun.  Its just unfortunate that it has to cost so much and take so many man hours and people to create a fun silly cartoon like this.  Once, all we needed was some paint on our hands and a cavewall as our canvas to entertain our families.  Who can fathom what the cost of a bag of popcorn and raisenettes would have been back then?

7 Disturbingly Cute Cavegirls out of 10 (GOOD)