The Croods

The most surprising part that I found about The Croods in my research is that the story is co-written by John Cleese.  The John Cleese from Fish Called Wanda? I beg the makers to clarify.  The imdb link indicates that.  Either ways, it will not impact my rating of the movie because it turns out to be one that is slightly above average at best.

Grug (Nicholas Cage – Voice) is the leader of his family.  As is the case with most cave men that we have been exposed to, Grug thinks with his muscles and doesn’t understand the meaning of brain.  But that was the name of the game in those times I guess and his strength was sufficient to keep the family fed with the occasional egg that he steals from a pre-historic bird.

 

Grug is extremely strong and is fiercely protective about his family of four – his wife Ugga (Catherine Keener – Voice), his dimwit son Thunk (Clark Duke – Voice), his newborn girl Sandy (Randy Thom – Voice) and most importantly his first born daughter Eep (Emma Stone – Voice).  The one he doesn’t really care about is his mother in law Gran (Cloris Leachman – Voice).  Collectively, they are THE CROODS.

 

Eep is a curious cutlet and much as her family dissuades her from venturing too far off from the cave, she keeps chasing the light (The sun).  But, when Eep sees a flick of light in the middle of the night, she decides to venture out of the cave where she meets Guy (Ryan Reynolds – Voice) and his Belt (Chris Sanders) who introduce her to fire and tells her about how the world as we know it will end very shortly.

 

One cannot help but think that The Croods is a play on the word crude, in the plural, with a slight change in spelling.  There is a lot of caveman lingo and mannerisms used – assuming that cave men behaved a lot like monkeys and that what we have been taught all our lives is absolutely true.  The animation quality and the 3D are just about acceptable levels considering what we have been exposed to in the past.

 

The story is no great shakes actually.  The dialogues and one liners are quite silly and corny – for lack of any other word – childish. Which is why I believe that The Croods will make good viewing for the family over the weekend.  But it isn’t a great movie or must watch by a mile.  In fact, you could watch it at home whenever the DVD releases but I doubt parents will have a choice, now that exams are over.

 

I wonder when and how Dreamworks will come upto the level of a Disney Pixar or should we resign ourselves to not getting a worthy competitor in this life time? Lets hope that I am wrong and that we something mind blowing from someone other than the current rulers of animation sooner than later.  6 on 10 for The Croods.  As I said earlier, a tad above average at best.

 

Watch the trailer on http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi126265113/?ref_=tt_ov_vi