CROOD — BUT EFFECTIVE
Cave dwellers will entertain the kids, but film feels like it's from a not-so-new age
I've seen species evolve faster than The Croods.
Look far enough back in time and you'll find The Croods, a
2013 computer-animated tale about a family of Neanderthals (voiced by Nicolas Cage, Catherine Keener, etc.) who meet a more evolved guy named Guy (Ryan Reynolds). Culture clashes and life lessons ensue.
On the strength of its $187-million box office (a not-shabby
14th place that year) a sequel was quickly commissioned, but corporate shuffles delayed the project and finally killed it. Then, like a Cretaceous dinosaur, it was brought back to life, and lumbers into whatever cinemas are still open this week.
Perhaps it's for the best that seven years have passed since the original, allowing for a new generation of tiny filmgoers to be born, because this Neolithic chapter is very much like the Old-o-lithic one. The biggest difference is that, instead of a single more evolved Guy, this time the Croods meet an entire family.
The Bettermans ( get it?) are Phil (Peter Dinklage), Hope (Leslie Mann) and Dawn (Kelly Marie Tran), and rather than living in a cave or out in the open, they've constructed a treehouse complete with running water, an elevator and a palisade. (Just what they're keeping out is the film's wait-for-it mystery.)
The movie, developed by a brain trust of six writers and directed by first-timer Joel Crawford, finds simple humour in technology's two-edged sword, as Thunk (Clark Duke) becomes addicted to “window,” which he treats like television. Meanwhile, the Bettermans decide that Guy would be better off with their daughter Dawn than with his girlfriend Eep, voiced by the appropriately named Emma Stone.
In between repeated appearances of Spandau Ballet's 1983 song True (I guess if you pay for the rights you might as well get your money's worth), The Croods trots out all the positive messages we've come to expect from animated outings. There's a vague save-the-ecology message. We learn that diversity is good, that simple folk sometimes have the right answers and that both co-operation and family are important. There's a shout-out to girl power, to woman power and even to old-woman power.
And yes, there's punch-in-theface slapstick and a poop joke, the vestigial organs of comedy.
What you won't find is much to care about in the characters. The Bettermans are certainly snobby but no one's truly evil here, just misunderstood to various degrees. And the eventually disclosed reason for their single commandment — “Don't eat the bananas” — feels oddly random.
There's still enough here to amuse the small fry — as mentioned, anyone young enough to really enjoy these Croods won't have seen the original, at least in theatres. And under different circumstances, A New Age might have been enough to entertain the kids during a long day of Christmas shopping. As a cinematic experience in pandemic times, it feels like a product from a completely different age.