‘The Croods’ is an animated Dreamworks film that follows the titular caveman family whose ground rules are set by the domineering father. But these rules are soon questioned as daughter Eep meets more intelligent human Guy and they set off on a field trip – through worlds populated by weird, fantastical creatures – brought about by the impending apocalypse.
‘The Croods’ is a fun enough family-friendly flick but it suffers seriously from over familiarity. The mechanic that the plot is hooked on is the relationship between father and daughter when a new character and potential boyfriend comes in sight which is tested, broken and then rebuilt, a plot that I’ve seen numerous times before. Throw in a regular insistence on being amazed by the CGI, which is no better and worse than other recent films, plus jokes lifted from many other films including ‘Wallace and Gromit’ (and they weren’t even fresh then); a cast of weird animals and a supposedly funny creature sidekick that attempts to ape ‘Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs’ but fails; and a cast of characters that is collected from many other places, including ‘Arthur Christmas’ (crazy grandparent figure); ‘The Incredibles’ (Crazy baby, strong mother figure, rebellious daughter) and numerous other films. There’s even an ‘Owl City’ song over the closing credits (which, naturally, feature 2D hand drawn images), like ‘Wreck It Ralph’, which shows Adam Young is attempting to carve out a career in doing them.
There are about three laugh-out-loud moments in the ninety-minute film and a touching, emotional ending but most of the plot points are predictable from the opening ten minutes and even the set-up of the jokes are obvious. I assume it has more appeal for the target audience of children but as an adult I’ve seen it all before.
The last twenty minutes make up for a relatively lacklustre first half but the sense of familiarity is too prevalent and other films have done it so much more better. The CGI and music is fitting but nothing special but it lacks its own hook to really stand on its own two prehistoric feet.
An end credits thanks to Peter Lord and David Sproxton suggests this was the aborted Aardman project from a few years ago before Dreamworks dumped Aardman. A little bit of the Aardman magic would have probably helped this film.
A fun film for the family but we’ve seen it all before. And better.
(4/10)
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