The Croods

I was already sold to see The Croods as soon as I heard who was responsible for it.

Chris Sanders is one of my favorite (current) artists in the animation industry. He has a fantastic portfolio (character designer for Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, and Mulan) as well as co-director of Lilo and Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon. (I encourage you to check out some of his illustrations here). He co-directed and wrote the screenplay for this film alongside Kirk DeMicco (Space Chimps). Needless to say, my expectations were high.

Concept Art

This is my first review, and it’s getting late, so I’ll keep my review short and simple.

THE GOOD: My lord, was this film visually gorgeous. It was just gushing with fantastic graphics. I savored every moment of it. There were actually a few scenes where I straight up said “Oh wow!!” out loud. Yeah, it was that beautiful. I defintely saw a Lewis Carroll influence in the film. The flora and fauna in this movie were unique and extremely creative, and reminded me a bit of the odd creatures lurking around the forest in Disney’s Alice in Wonderland. So that was fun.

Anyone who knows me knows that I prefer manic and cartoony animation. Don’t get me wrong, Hunchback of Notre Dame and Prince of Egypt are fantastic pieces of art that I adore. But give me a Tex Avery cartoon, and I’ll be happier than a pig in mud. This film definitely channeled the manic energy of 1940s Warner Brothers animation. It’s refreshing to see a film use slapstick and visual gags, instead of relying on snarky one-liners (a popular trend in current animated films).

THE BAD: This film isn’t Sanders best. It lacked the pathos of Lilo and Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon. It may be because it’s more cartoony. But I think the major problem for this film was that it the ‘turning’ point of the film felt forced and unconvincing. I won’t go into details, because I don’t want to spoil it. But I was just not impressed by how the problems were resolved.

Despite the fact that the ending kind of falls flat, I would still see this film again, and I do recommend it. The reason is because it was just so fun and creative. I was laughing the whole time. It’s not the greatest animated film of the past 5 years, but I assure you it’s not near the worst either.

Oh, I forgot to mention that Nic Freakin’ Cage is in this and was easily one of the best parts of the film. Being a Nic Cage film, his character occasionally ran around screaming his head off. To not have Nic Cage not do that wouldn’t be appropriate (Evidence)