THE CROODS Review

As the first animated film of 2013 The Croods doesn't necessarily stand out as an instant animated classic that will be played for years in the living rooms of growing families, but it is fun enough while it lasted. While I was never particularly attracted to the trailer as I didn't much care for the character design and the voice cast just seemed to be all too famous for the story and characters to seem more important than the people speaking the dialogue. Turns out, despite these cavemen sounding like Nicolas Cage (which is pretty great actually), Emma Stone, and Ryan Reynolds (who has another Dreamworks film on the way with Turbo, way to confuse the kids!) this film serves its purpose to the fullest and satisfies in some unexpected ways as well. Dreamworks as a studio has been climbing the quality ladder lately, since the release of both Kung fu Panda films and How to Train Your Dragon I have had more faith in them when it's been easier to doubt with the decline of the Shrek series and Rise of the Guardians under performing (though I rather enjoyed that film). In fact, it is fair to say I have many of the same thoughts concerning the two films. Both have a wonderful world that has been created for these characters to exist in yet it is simply the events of the story that seem less inspired and more along the lines of standard storytelling techniques to get across a well worn lesson for the kiddos. While there is no specific antagonist here other than nature itself and the conflict comes more from within the family dynamics the story still plays out with a somewhat dull beat by beat pace that doesn't pick up until too late in the film to really say I enjoyed it from start to finish. It is fine for what it is and even better than it has to be in some aspects, but it isn't great which would have been nice to see from Dreamworks as they have a real shot to start dominating the computer animation game.