Feeding off the colossal success of that other prehistoric franchise, Ice Age, DreamWorks hopes to attract big numbers with some big Hollywood names in its latest, The Croods.
Emma Stone, Ryan Reynolds and Nicolas Cage lend their vocies to the tale of a prehistoric family on the move after their world starts crumbling around them.
Crood family patriarch Grug (Cage) has seen his neighbours gobbled up by predators and decides that the best way to keep his family safe is to stick to their cave home.
New is always dangerous is the Crood credo. If you thought being sent to your room was bad, try being confined to hole in a rock; understandably, teenaged Eep (Stone) is going more than a little stir crazy hanging out with baby Sandy, mom Ugga (Catherine Keener), her dottery Gran (Cloris Leachman) and lunk-headed brother Thunk (Hot Tub Time Machines Clark Duke). She longs to see the wide world beyond the caves mouth, danger or not.
One night Eep sneaks out, follows the light and encounters Guy (Reynolds), a dude her age with perfect pecs and a theory about impending doom. Plus he can make fire: how can dad compete with that? Grug is old-school while Guy is a Renaissance man, a few million years early. This clash between old and new forms the primary discord of the tale. Add that to typical teen hormones and dads inherent inability to let go of his little girl, and its going to be a long epoch.
The family finds themselves on the march after their cave is destroyed. The jungle is sure a lot more colourful than the cave, with technicolour flora and fauna and giant saber-toothed kitties to match.
The Croods has a genuine pedigree: director Chris Sanders earned Academy Award nominations for How To Train Your Dragon and Lilo and Stitch, and Roger Deakins, cinematographer of such grown-up tales as Skyfall and True Grit, has become the go-to visual effects consultant enlisted to make kids flicks a panoramic, multi-layered experience.
The Croods is populated by colourful, fanciful creatures, paving the way for novelizations, electronic games, dolls, plush toys and Croodaceous Creature Packs. The film is an entertaining enough Jurassic journey; a little more oomph to the script wouldve made it a great one.
