The Croods: A New Age Review

The Croods are back for a second cinematic adventure. This time the tribe meets the first civilised family and faces the challenges of their culture crash.

Since the events of the first film The Croods are searching for the fabled ‘Tomorrow’. They seem to have found it when they cross over a wall to a bountiful oasis. This land had been developed by The Bettermans, old family friends of Guy (Ryan Reynolds). The parents soon start to clash, Guy goes native, Eep (Emma Stone) befriends Grace Betterman (Kelly Marie Tran) and shows her the world outside the walls, and Thunk (Clark Duke) gets obsessed with the window.

2013’s The Croods was a surprise because it had a bad trailer and looked incredibly irritating. It turned out to be a sweet and delightful family film with a lot of slapstick and physical humour. So, expectations were a lot higher for The Croods: A New Age. Signs weren’t promising when the film started because the opening set-piece where The Croods fight off a load of predators was too similar to the opening of the first film. The same can be said about the potential conflict between Grug (Nicolas Cage) and Guy because Guy wants to start a new pack with Eep. The Croods: A New Age avoids the trap of just being a repeat of the first film, for the most part.

There were some repeated themes. Grug’s a stubborn man who doesn’t like change or new people. He takes a dislike to Phil Betterman (Peter Dinklage). Grace has a similar journey to Eep in the first film because both characters had overprotective dads who wanted them to stay away from the wild. Eep helps Grace led out her rebellious side.

The Croods: A New Age was designed to be a continuation of the first film, which was a given. Yet there was a 2D animated introduction where Eep recounts the events of the first film, so newcomers or people needing a refresher, can catch up quickly.

The Croods: A New Age was a film of two halves. The first half was a sitcom set up where there was a culture clash between the Croods and the Bettermans. The second half turned The Croods: A New Age into an adventure film. Both were fun in their own way.

The first half can be seen as a commentary about classism and racism. The Bettermans look down at The Croods because they see them as uncouth savages. They schemed to tear Guy away from his new pack and set him up with Grace. There were some funny sitcom scenarios like Grace returning home drunk, leading to a disastrous dinner. Leslie Mann was wonderfully passive-aggressive as Hope Betterman. Some plot points were telegraphed really early i.e. Grug being told he can’t eat the bananas. There were also subversions, like the relationship between Eep and Grace. The film made it look like Eep would get jealous of Grace, fearing they would be love rivals. But Eep was just excited to finally have a female friend.

The first half did feel a little like The Flintstones due to The Croods getting used to the Bettermans mod-cons. This led to The Croods sequel having some jokes about modern culture like Mr. Betterman having a man-cave and Eep and Grace ride the tiger as a car. This was mostly forgivable.

The second half was when the film had more slapstick humour. This half of the film introduced the Punch Monkeys and there were creatures that communicate by punching. It could have been a joke that could have gotten old really quickly, but the filmmakers were able to make it fresh by adding something new each time. A fun recurring joke was when Phil kept inventing devices to defeat the Punch Monkeys and it kept backfiring on the man. The female side of the adventure does go into some off-beat territory. It was wonderfully wacky as they have to go on a rescue mission.

One of the odder jokes in the film was many of the animals were an amalgamation of two different creatures. There were chicken-seals, land-sharks, and spider-wolves. It was similar to Avatar: The Last Airbender where all the animals were dual creatures.

Whilst The Croods sequel was mostly a comedy, the filmmakers ensured there was also plenty of heart. The film opened with Guy’s tragic origins. The emotional thrusts of the film were Eep and Guy’s relationship and the parents having to learn to let their children make their own decisions. Family was a key theme throughout. Ugga (Catherine Keener) says to her daughter, the Bettermans are the closest thing Guy has to a family.

Like the first entry The Croods: A New Age was a simple yet delightful family film. There was plenty of physical and visual humour for the kids whilst all audiences can enjoy the emotional core.