REVIEW: The Croods

With the economic downturn over the last several years, there are probably quite a few fathers who can relate to caveman Grug Crood in some small way.  Just keep your head down, nose to the grindstone, keep doing things the way you’ve been doing them for the last 20 years, and you’ll somehow keep the family going.  But then, disaster strikes, and there’s no choice but to venture outside your comfortable confines in order to survive.  For the Croods, the disaster is a lot worse than a layoff or a defaulted mortgage; their home is destroyed as their entire world quite literally comes crashing down around them.  The only thing Grug, wife Ugga, mother-in-law Gran, eldest sister Eep, middle son Thunk, and feral toddler Sandy can do is run into the great unknown of a jungle they never even knew existed.

While there, they meet Guy, an idea man with a slightly more rounded forehead who has survived alone by his wits, cunning, and a little help from his sloth pants-holder-upper/comic relief sidekick, Belt.  Guy creates fire to keep predators away at night, he understands the concept of shoes, and can set elaborate traps to snare food.  He also has a plan: to get to the high ground before this thing he’s calling “the end” catches up with all of them.  But Grug doesn’t like change…and he doesn’t like the way his teenage daughter is so enamored with this new Guy, either.

As I was watching The Croods with my daughter, I was reminded of the last Daddy-Daughter Date we’d had to the multiplex to see last year’s Hotel Transylvania.  That’s because the two movies essentially tell the same story: Uptight dad is so concerned about protecting his family (specifically a strong-willed teenage daughter) that he denies them of the joys of life, until an outsider young man is accidentally introduced into their lives and, with his unconventional ways, sweeps the girl, the family, and eventually the father off their feet.  Sadly, putting the same old “manic pixie dream boy” story into a never-before-seen, mythical, prehistoric landscape doesn’t change the fact that The Croods is well worn territory.

This wouldn’t be so bad if the characters were more interesting.  Transylvania had the main conflict between overprotective dad and rebellious teenage daughter, but it also had supporting characters like Frankenstein, Wayne the Wolfman, and Murray the Mummy to act as sounding boards for Dracula’s concerns.  In Croods, Grug is oddly isolated in his paranoia, ruling over a family who rarely speaks out or asks that he reconsider his actions.  There’s a real missed opportunity here as either Gran or Ugga would have been the perfect ones to step forward and be the voice of reason.  And while these two do blurt out the occasional quip, it’s not until well into the movie that anyone other than Eep, the daughter, really tries to get Grug to chill out.  Honestly, Gran, Ugga, Thunk, and especially Sandy, are little more than 3-D rendered tag-a-longs as we watch the Grug, Eep, and Guy story unfold in a most predictable way.

Cliched story and weak characters aside, The Croods is worth a rental for the visuals alone.  The chunky, clunky caveman look for Grug is expected, but the squat, broad-faced wild woman Eep is a fresh respite from the perfect Disney Princesses we all know and loathe.  Guy, on the other hand, with his huge chin and giant face looks like a ventriloquist dummy.  But ignore the cavemen and focus on the amazing flora and fauna of the film.  There are some really beautiful scenes of the Croods just walking through the jungle that are so dense and colorful that you’ll be thankful you own a high-def TV.  The animal designs are a lot of fun, even if they are a bit formulaic – most seem to be a combination of two animals, like we’re seeing some early evolutionary models before the two species split on the family tree.  But I don’t recall the last time I saw a parrot-colored, snaggletoothed tiger or a whale walking around on elephant legs, so I’m not complaining. (For more on the look of the film, check out my review of the book, The Art of The Croods)

Like Hotel Transylvania, the latest from Dreamworks isn’t bad per se; it’s just pretty forgettable.  Aside from the  impressive visuals, there’s not much here that will keep you coming back for more of The Croods.