Sequel offers solid, but unspectacular entertainment
The Croods: A New Age (PG, 95 mins) Directed by Joel Crawford Reviewed by James Croot ★★★
It was the movie that saved Dreamworks. A proposed stopmotion buddy comedy that, eight years after it was first announced, eventually emerged as a CGI adventure about a family of cave people.
After the disaster of Rise of the Guardians, the studio badly needed a hit and, in The Croods, it got one, when the movie emerged as the 14th biggest of 2013.
A kind of Family Guy-meets-The Flintstones, it charmed, thanks to an impressive vocal cast that included Emma Stone, Nicholas Cage and Ryan Reynolds, a touch of surrealism and a succession of weird, wonderful and wilfully destructive creatures.
Those elements are still very much front and centre in this belated sequel, even if the story (created by no less than six writers) lacks the same vibrancy and ingenuity.
As family patriarch Grug (Cage) worries about the burgeoning relationship between his teenage daughter Eep (Stone) and the orphaned Guy (Reynolds) splitting the pack, he faces a new divisive threat in the very thing he’s spent his life searching for.
When the Croods stumble across a ‘‘garden of Eden’’ filled with lush forest and even more luscious fruits, Grug initially thinks they may have all found their ‘‘tomorrow’’. But he’s suspicious of this paradise’s other human inhabitants – the Bettermans – who live in the trees, smell unnatural and, most shockingly, live in separate rooms.
To make matters worse, they were apparently Guy’s parents’ best friends and clearly have designs on coupling him with their own teenage daughter Dawn (Kelly Marie Tran). However, even as the rest of the pack become smitten by this new life, Grug isn’t so convinced it’s for them, especially when Phil Betterman (Peter Dinklage) insists that no-one touches the abundant bunches of bananas.
Disappointingly reducing one of the comedic stars of the original, Belt the Sloth, to a tiny supporting role, A New Age follows a formulaic story path, albeit one that delivers plenty of comedic moments. The best involve a disastrous dinner party and the bonding between Dawn and Eep, as the latter shows the former the potential for adventure that lies beyond her walled home via a ‘‘big night out’’.
The Flintstones-esque inventions within the Bettermans’ home are also a delight, while a late shift in tone towards Thor: Ragnarok territory adds some frisson to the final third, which was threatening to drift towards a ploddingly predictable finale.
From a surprisingly sombre opening to the repeated use of Spandau Ballet’s True and The Partridge Family’s I Think I Love You, this Croods sequel might not be the follow-up fans of the original were hoping for, but it certainly will provide solid, if unspectacular, school holiday entertainment.