{"id":721,"date":"2014-10-02T16:03:48","date_gmt":"2014-10-02T16:03:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cinemacocoa.com\/?p=721"},"modified":"2014-10-02T16:03:48","modified_gmt":"2014-10-02T16:03:48","slug":"review-the-croods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemacocoa.com\/?p=721","title":{"rendered":"Review: The Croods"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
\nDreamworks newest animated outing held\u00a0a lot of promise in my mind, from a promising trailer showing some gorgeous landscapes, colourful creatures and good laughs. Yet while these are present, it didn’t play out as well as I’d hoped.<\/div>\n

The Croods are a prehistoric caveman\u00a0family and\u00a0the father, Grug (Nicolas Cage) protects them by being overly paranoid about anything “new” or adventurous. His daughter Eep however (Emma Stone) is rebellious and curious, and after sneaking from the safety of their cave she\u00a0uncovers a new world… just as their world begins to end. Literally.<\/p>\n

This film has some gorgeous animation. I want to stress this first as there was one specific moment where I was slack jawed; where the Croods dive and swim in water. The water effects were so startling and realistically implemented that the cartoon characters looked real by proxy! Does this one moment carry the film? A little bit, yeah!
\nThere are some good laugh out loud moments, my cinema’s audience were getting into it, especially the younger audience. The characters have disfunctional family traits that are rewarding as the film progresses (Gran is a particular favourite). The animation is dynamic and rapid-fire, almost like a Looney Toons cartoon at times, while the humour is often based around anachronisms and plays on modern living (but not unbearably so)<\/p>\n

But, for all these good things… the story and plot just weren’t there for me. Dreamworks has stunned me in recent years with some awesome storytelling and compelling character development\u00a0(How to Train Your Dragon<\/em>, principly) and instead\u00a0The Croods<\/em>… just\u00a0feels like a sequence of unfortunate events; a scene happens, it ends, a scene happens… it ends (including the aforementioned water sequence…)
\nThe characters\u00a0are either one dimensional and sadly a little soulless, or very predictable. The characters themselves simply aren’t interesting or unique to carry the film, and they are all we have,\u00a0since this\u00a0is effectively a road trip movie. There were really heavy emotional moments that simply died on me (and I’m a sucker<\/em> for getting involved in movies normally!)\u00a0The son and the mother, I barely know who they were except “the dumb one” and the… uhm… “supportive one?” respectively.<\/p>\n

I don’t\u00a0know, but\u00a0The Croods<\/em> was a little too primitive for\u00a0my tastes, despite how gorgeous it can look and how fun some of the moments are. A fun day out for the family perhaps, but I wouldn’t be surprised if older audiences kinda shrug it off as yet\u00a0another random cartoon venture.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nAdditional Marshmallows: And I have to add, I was really distracted by the… multi-coloured tiger\/sabertooth creature. It had a weird, oversized head<\/em>! It just looked wrong, I couldn’t see it as a functioning creature; its head was the same size as its entire body almost!<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dreamworks newest animated outing held\u00a0a lot of promise in my mind, from a promising trailer showing some gorgeous landscapes, colourful creatures and good laughs. Yet while these are present, it didn’t play out as well as I’d hoped. The Croods are a prehistoric caveman\u00a0family and\u00a0the father, Grug (Nicolas Cage) protects them by being overly paranoid… <\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[146,160,264,599,613,649,970,1046,1111,1784,2212,2431,2640,3017],"class_list":["post-721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animation","tag-action","tag-adventure","tag-animation","tag-cartoon","tag-cavemen","tag-children","tag-dreamworks","tag-emma-stone","tag-family","tag-kids","tag-nicolas-cage","tag-prehistoric","tag-ryan-reynolds","tag-the-croods"],"yoast_head":"\nReview: The Croods - Cinema Cocoa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cinema-cocoa-e80a6e.ingress-haven.ewp.live\/?p=721\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Review: The Croods - Cinema Cocoa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dreamworks newest animated outing held\u00a0a lot of promise in my mind, from a promising trailer showing some gorgeous landscapes, colourful creatures and good laughs. Yet while these are present, it didn’t play out as well as I’d hoped. The Croods are a prehistoric caveman\u00a0family and\u00a0the father, Grug (Nicolas Cage) protects them by being overly paranoid... 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