The Croods

I went to see The Croods thinking it would be Ice Age meets Brave.  While the animation was Brave-esque, the story was compelling enough to hold and keep my adult interest.  I didn’t have to feign interest in one more movie my child liked and I had to pretend I liked.  It honestly made me laugh.

My daughter said “this is a total Dad movie.”  She went on about how Brave was a “total Mom movie.”  I still have to see it.  She says she will buy me a copy for Mother’s Day. I’m looking forward to that.  A family movie with enough snarkiness to please the teens, and enough humor to make grandma laugh.  The grandma’s interaction with Nicolas Cage’s overprotective dad was an ongoing – and funny – gag.

The kids were laughing, adults were laughing, and the hipster “evolved” caveman as opposed to the knuckle draggers, was a nice twist.  For once, a movie that shows how using your brain instead of your fists really does work better.  It was also cute to see a smallish dude falling in love with a chunkier girl.

So, on the politically correct scale, the movie is off the charts in a Mac commercial kinda way.  But, even that, is part of the joke, and you can laugh at all of it because in the end, evolution did work and the ones who were smart enough to figure it out, did survive.

In all, with popcorn, a good ride and visually popping.  The Avatar references were obvious, with a sweet twist in big scary cat-owl and other cat creatures with a cuddly side.

Strong female character, although why is it that the man was the one who figured out fire, and not the woman? Something to chuckle about in the never ending quest to be politically correct, again.  Nicolas Cage’s oppressive kill joy dad steals the show, with funny creatures and characters like a dinosaur who fetches like a dog and the boy who finds him.

With messages that it’s okay to think outside the “kill circle,” this movie was a pleasure to watch, after having sat through awful movie after awful movie about how Mars is running out of moms because the men are irrelevant in the future (typical male fear fantasy movie, yawn.), or Ice Age, which is cute and all, but not so much humor or content for the adult other than the ride.