Tom Long reviews 'The Croods': Voiced by Nicolas Cage, Ryan Reynolds and Emma Stone
It's the rare animated film that encourages kids to think outside the box.
Then again, it's (happily) the rare animated film that teaches children that ideas are generated by hitting yourself in the head with a rock.
Such is the dynamic in the strangely ecstatic "The Croods," which encourages intellectual exploration, the breaking of boundaries and the use of imagination even as characters plunge hundreds of feet without harm, whales and turtles fly and our heroes are stalked by a rainbow-colored saber-toothed tiger. It's a dizzy mix of the psychologically possible and the physically improbable.
It's also just a big splat of Hollywood animation, swinging 3-D like some (very effective) visual club, relying on familial stereotypes (the lunkish brother, the bothersome mother-in-law, a crazed baby straight out of "The Incredibles") and outrageous creatures.
But there's something heartening in the brains-over-brawn, seek-the-dawn fearlessness of this movie. It's the rare kid who will come away actually hitting himself in the head with a rock but its underlying appreciation of knowledge and ingenuity may take hold for many.
Meet the Croods, custom-built for fast-food-franchise action figures and oversized soft drink cups. They are a family of cavemen and women who live by the credo that what can't see you won't eat you, spending most of their lives sleeping atop one another in a dark cave, sharing stories about the dangers of ambition or curiosity.
Not buying into these stories is oldest daughter Eep (Emma Stone), a rebellious sort who doesn't see the thrill in shivering in a dark cave. Spying a shock of light moving in the night one evening, she sneaks out and runs into a fellow named Guy (Ryan Reynolds) who has this nifty new discovery called fire.
Guy is apparently a bit further along the evolutionary scale than the Croods. He not only has fire — and shoes! — but he's figured out that the tectonic plates are shifting and the Earth is about to get a makeover. A cave won't provide safety; he's headed to higher ground.
When an earthquake leaves their home buried in rubble, the Croods, including ultra-conservative, paranoid dad Grug (Nicolas Cage), are forced to concede Guy might have a point. So they enlist-kidnap him into leading them to a new land.
This looks a lot like that planet in "Avatar," all dancing flowers and pink scavenger birds and lush forests and things rushing at your 3-D glasses. As the family progresses, though, it's Guy's ideas and intellect that keeps them alive, not Grug's strength; and eventually, Grug's leadership is undermined.
Understand, the action and slapstick that writer-directors Chris Sanders ("How to Train Your Dragon") and Kirk De Micco ("Space Chimps") throw on the screen is colorful and pretty constant — this is a film filled with cheap laughs and visual stunts.
But kudos to "The Croods" for being nowhere near as crude as it might have been. This movie not only has its heart in the right place, it has its brain in the right place.
'The Croods'
GRADE: B
Rated PG for some scary action
Running time: 98 minutes
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A prehistoric family goes on a road trip to an uncharted and fantastical world that unfolds in 3-D in “The Croods.” / DreamWorks
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