The Croods Reviews
Top CriticIt captures the wonder (and more gently, the anxiety) of discovery time and time again. And the filmmakers have a hoot playing with the Croods' encounters with, as well as their misunderstandings of, all things new.
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| Original Score: 3.5/4
As family viewing, it's pleasant enough: primitive, yes, but in a digitally sophisticated way that's boisterous, funny and will no doubt sell a lot of toys.
The animation is first-rate, with moments of genuine visual imagination, and the story, while unremarkable, is entirely adequate.
How to Train Your Dragon" and "Lilo & Stitch" are completely indicative of the experience you'll have with "The Croods," which is to say a supremely positive one.
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| Original Score: B
It may not be an instant animated classic, but it's a charmer that will leave the kids ... feeling warm and fuzzy ...
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| Original Score: 3/5
A film which, if not truly sophisticated, isn't nearly as crude as advertised.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
The family-dramedy genre that the film inhabits demands a bit more narrative ingenuity than is on display.
Fast-paced, inventive animated comic adventure of a Stone Age family gets an extra boost from the lively vocal performances of stars Nicolas Cage, Emma Stone and Ryan Reynolds.
Even the lively visuals and unrelenting thrill-ride pace can't disguise rough-hewn storytelling, or the fact that the tale of a old-fashioned macho cave dad and his family seems a bit yabba-dabba done that already.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
This movie not only has its heart in the right place, it has its brain in the right place.
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| Original Score: B
I'd like to take back all those times I said Nicolas Cage was one of the most annoying actors on film. It turns out he's equally terrible when he's only on the soundtrack.
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| Original Score: 1/4
"The Croods" is light fare, but it explores a serious theme, if only superficially.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
It's the kind of rib-tickling, emotionally satisfying, universally appealing effort that gives computer animation a good name.
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| Original Score: 3.5/4
Like the continents, it's a little too easy to drift away.
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| Original Score: 2.5/5
[It] might even give the little ones something more challenging to think about than its tired main plot.
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| Original Score: 3/5
The pace is brisk and occasionally slapstick, and some amusing situations stem from the cavemen displaying brawn over brains.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
Had the movie figured out a way to stay the less-cliched course, it might have helped the DreamWorks oeuvre take steps toward Pixar's emotional resonance.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
Considering the fact that a young girl is picking her nose on the movie poster, "The Croods" is surprisingly evolved.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Neither as thrilling nor as funny as it ought to be.
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| Original Score: 2/4
The movie is well-edited and lean, a fast-paced, action-filled bit of froth that manages to be diverting and surprisingly fun.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
When it gets past the Stone Age humor, this weird film manages to find some gentle revelations.
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| Original Score: 3/5
Although state-of-the-art in its rendering of textures, movement and stereography, DreamWorks' latest 3D toon, The Croods, adopts a relatively primitive approach to storytelling.
In an interesting way, "The Croods" is about storytelling - cave paintings, hints of oral tradition, stumbling upon metaphors - and the impulse to remember amid change. There's something touching in that ...
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| Original Score: 3/4
"The Croods" rests on the notion of the patriarch who must learn to adapt and let go. (I resent this storyline, for the record.)
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
Despite a few too many mother-in-law jokes, "The Croods" nicely makes it clear that even before they had fire, families understood how important it was to cherish and protect each other.
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| Original Score: 3/4
This material could have easily fallen into sitcom clichés with a heaping scoop of anachronism jokes on the side, but The Croods takes these characters and their situation seriously enough to make the story matter.
A handful of adrenalizing sequences of animated anarchy can't save this story from feeling overly primitive.
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| Original Score: C+
It's all entertaining enough, and will surely sell plenty of stuffed toys. But it winds up a fair few rungs below the likes of 'Brave' on the evolutionary ladder.
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| Original Score: 3/5
"The Croods" is both brisk and beautiful, and should be sufficiently entertaining for family audiences for whom few such options exist these days.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
Further back on the evolutionary chain than the Flintstones, and also lagging in the comedy stakes, this sweet Stone Age clan nonetheless will captivate the youngsters.
