Meet the Croods: dad Grug (Nicolas Cage, National Treasure, Face/Off), mom Ugga (Catherine Keener, Where the Wild Things Are), daughter Eep (Emma Stone, The Amazing Spider-man, Gangster Squad), son Thunk (Clark Duke, Kick-Ass), toddler Sandy (Randy Thom) and mother-in-law Gran (Cloris Leachman, Spanglish, The Longest Yard). Their whole life consisted of living under a rock, literally. The family would only come out when in search of food. But as Eep has grown, she became more independent and wants freedom away from her overprotective dad. Hey, even cavemen suffer from teenage problems! During one night, after seeing a light in the distance, she emerges from the cave without permission and follows it.
She finds the source of the light to be Guy (Ryan Reynolds, The Proposal, The Green Lantern), who is more developed from the Croods” (smarter, built, etc.) Guy tells Eep that the World is ending, and that she should go with him to escape the apocalypse. She refuses, and after Grug finds out she left the cave, is then brought back. The whole movie consists of the Croods, along with Guy and his adorable “belt” Belt, trying to escape the ending of the World. Along the way we see the ingenuity of Guy, Eep slowly falling for him, the wisecracking Gran giving hell to Grug and Grug’s jealousy of Guy, where he feels that he can’t protect his family anymore.
When I first saw the trailer for the movie, which I believe ran before Wreck-It Ralph, I was kind of excited. It seemed like a funny movie, and it looked good. But I was slightly disappointed at the final product. The movie wasn’t always funny. There were some funny moments, Gran come into mind with her jokes and sayings. The movie felt over-the-top; the opening sequence was crazy. But it is a kid’s movie after all, and the kiddos enjoyed it. Visually, it was stunning. The movie had a huge palette of bright colors. The 3-D version is worth the price of admission.
“The Croods” is an imperfect movie. It’s more of a “style over substance” type of movie. But again, this movie is aimed towards kids, all they care about is the funnies and how it looks. Kids will enjoy this, but for the older audience, they might be in for a long time.
