The Croods

I wish movies like "Clan of the Cave Bear," "Quest for Fire," and "Caveman" (with Ringo Starr!) were appropriate for children.  So what's a parent to do when their kids want to watch a movie about prehistoric man?  Put in "The Croods," I guess.  It's not great, but there are worse things that your kids can make you sit through.

The movie is about a caveman family that lives by the philosophy that fear keeps them alive.  They stay in their cave as much as possible except for the daughter who wants to explore the world around her.  After their cave is destroyed, the family is forced to make a trek into uncharted territory in search of a new home.

I take notes when I watch a movie.  The notes didn't seem all that strange when I was I was taking them.  But when I reviewed them afterward, I laughed out loud at how ridiculous this movie was.

1) The family motto is "Never not be afraid."  The Croods violate this immediately and whenever convenient.  It makes for the characters' motivations seem false, because they can't be consistent.

2) What's with the animals?  It is established that this is prehistoric Earth, so why are all the animals (except a sloth) bizarre chimeras?  It's as if the creators had a bowl full of plant and animal names.  They'd draw two or three and create some hybrid creature.  What's wrong with mammoths and sabre-toothed tigers?  I don't need cow-whales or frog-flowers (actual animals in the movie).

3) The owl-cat looks like when Michael Jackson becomes a werecat in "Thriller."  Not a complaint: more of a distraction.

4) The baby of the family acts like a dog.  There is not a scrap of humanity in this character.  She's a dog that a person birthed.  The family even treats her like a dog!  Why write that character?  Just give the family a dog.  Well, they do find a dog (a dog-alligator actually).  The son trains the dog to roll over.  The problem is they're in a tree and the dog rolls out of the tree to it's death.  It's been in the movie for two minutes.  Oddly enough, after the death of the dog, the baby starts acting like a human child.  I'm not sure what to make of this.

5) The family finds an abandoned torch and (being as they've never encountered fire) are hypnotized by the sparks swirling about on the breeze.  All I could think was "wildfire."  You may say, "Just give in to the wonderment, Doug" or "You're looking too much into it, Doug."  But the next scene is the Croods causing a massive, comical wildfire!  This is not cool.  This movie is anti-fire safety.

6) This one is a little dark.  The daughter's behavior (a desire to leave the cave and explore) should've resulted in her father's death.  She should've needed to reconcile her father's restrictiveness with her own recklessness to arrive at a philosophy that combines the best aspects of her father and herself thus showing an appreciation of her father (even if only in death) and growing as a person.  Instead, her harmful behavior is justified and she ends the movie the same as when it started.

7) The dad "sacrifices" himself three times in the conclusion.  Why the quote marks on "sacrifices?"  Because there are literally no consequences to his sacrifices.  He is not killed, injured, or even in much emotional turmoil.  Just cut those sections out of the movie.  Any action that does not result in consequences and therefore does not affect or forward the story should be left out.

8) The father hates his mother-in-law.  It's insane how much this man loathes the old woman.  He not only actively fantasizes about her death, he actually performs acts that he believes will result in her demise.  The irrational, intense hatred he has for the mother-in-law reminded be so much of Al Bundy's feelings about his wife in "Married With Children."  This is also not a complaint.  It was just a baffling decision for a kids movie.

9) All the animals become pets.  Literally.  Every critter that has more than 3 minutes of screen time will become a family pet.  This includes the carnivores that the Croods lived in fear of their entire lives.  It's such a terrible, artificial, happy ending to a movie that already had an artificial happy ending.  It may be my least favorite thing that happens in the entire movie.

Now you may be thinking, "It's just a kid's movie."  I will not accept that.  That kind of reasoning is basically saying that because a film is for children that it can't be well thought out or intelligent.  If I can't tell you that your kids are stupid, you shouldn't tell me they're stupid either.

Despite that list above, I didn't hate "The Croods."  It's very pretty and the design of the world and creatures are fun.  The cast is pretty good with Nicolas Cage reveling in his role.  I just feel like the opportunity existed to make "The Croods" a great movie.  Instead, it was just a kinda OK movie.

5.5 out of 10