I have never been a
big fan of DreamWorks films to begin with, I think that their more recent films
are poorly written and unfunny, with some exceptions. However the biggest
problem with DreamWorks is that they completely miss their target audience, for
example aiming their first (and one of their best) films “Antz” at a young audience
when the film was clearly written for a more mature one. So when I was about to
watch The Croods I had no idea what to expect, I wasn’t too sure about how the
film looked, but I had been surprised before with films such as “Madagascar”
and “Kung Fu Panda”, but this film could hardly keep me awake.
It’s a really
overdone and simple story about a family who have rules and have to stay to a
certain routine, the protagonist is the teenage girl who strives for more out
of life, and then an event occurs which forces the family to go in to the wild
and accept new things, much to the dismay of the overprotective Dad.
It’s a really
familiar story, and I wouldn’t mind if it had been pulled off well, and there
was something to keep me excited… but there really wasn’t, I knew what was
going to happen, and I really just wanted it to get over with. The story
focuses on the rebellious girl “Eep” (voiced by Emma Stone) and her conflicts
with her change hating father “Grug” (voiced by Nicholas Cage) as well as a
teenage boy “Guy” (voiced by Ryan Reynolds) who introduces the family to the
wild and shows them how to survive….aaaand that’s it. This film rarely focuses
on the other characters. For a film who’s message is “Family Matters” it
doesn’t pay much attention to the rest of the family. In one scene towards the
end, when the mother character (I can’t even remember her name being mentioned)
appeared having a conversation with Grug, I leaned over to my friend and
whispered “I completely forgot she was in this film”. There are only three
relationships between three characters in this film, the rest are passed off as
unmemorable comic relief or the mother character who HAS to be there for the
sake of the message.
Speaking of comic
relief, for a kids film this wasn’t funny in the slightest. I’m not just saying
that in my opinion here either, none of the children in my screening laughed
apart from where “Belt” said “Dat-Dat-Daaaaaaaa” because they remember that bit
from the trailers. Oh don’t worry, that joke isn’t used once, not twice, it
even breaks the rule of three and is used four times throughout the film. The
kids only laughed the first time…. they aren’t stupid like filmmakers seem to
think they are. I can see where this was coming from, they wanted the phrase to
become the new Puss in Boots face from Shrek or the “I like to move it” song
from Madagascar… but it just missed, there was nothing catchy about it, there
was nothing charming about it, there was nothing charming about this entire
film! It wasn’t funny, just packed with “Oh I invented shoes, I invented Hugs”
jokes which get old on the trailer.
One thing I’d like to
address. People praise the film on its “Stunning” animation. I ain’t a big fan
of deserts or jungles thank you.
Finally I’d like to
end on how much I think this film stole from other films. I’m really not sure
how anyone hasn’t noticed how much Eep looks like Meredith from Pixar’s
“Brave”. Yeah I understand animated films want to enter the 21st century by
introducing Female leads, but surely you can think of an original design, she’s
a cavewoman! Why don’t you base her design off cave paintings or something. All
of the characters designs were pretty basic and unmemorable. The story is
pretty much “The Wizard of Oz”, and even the designs of the environments
reminded me of Kansas or the poppy fields, which only reminded me that I could
be watching “Oz the Great and Powerful”. Some scenes were taken straight from
Disney’s “Tarzan” such as a montage where Guy was showing the Croods the
wonders of the outside world was very similar to Jane showing the same thing to
Tarzan.
I understand people
enjoyed this film, I have read many reviews defending this film but in my
personal opinion, I really didn’t like it. It was just too unoriginal and
generic for me to find interesting. I wouldn’t even recommend it for a family
day out but other reviewers seem to like it enough to give it 4/5 so you never
know. Personally I would give this…
1/5
Thank god I was on
orange Wednesdays.
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