An Indigo Mind

Last Friday afternoon I went to see The Croods with my family. I was looking forward to it – after all, even at their worst Dreamworks does something interesting, and with the pedigree this movie has it couldn’t be anywhere near Dreamworks’ worst.

Verdict – it was a good movie. Not jaw-dropping amazing, but colorful, and emotional, and funny. Go see it in theaters – it is worth it.

The Croods is a Flintstones-tinted Apocalypse Road Trip. The movie sets the scene with Eep, an adventurous cavewoman, her over-protective father Grug, and her standard wacky family. They are admittedly cliches, but they are a lot more fun to watch then they could have been. The movie doesn’t really begin until a neurotic boy shows up with a dire warning – the world is ending! After some drama, the quest for ‘tomorrow’ is on.

The movie makes an interesting choice in who it focuses on – the first half of the movie focuses on Eep, because it’s her adventurous nature that gets the plot moving, but after the story is underway the focus shifts over to Grug and his struggles to stay relevant and protect his family, and he gets the majority of character development. A bit like if Triton had become the focus of The Little Mermaid. I think it was a good move, because it kept the movie fresh and it followed the natural development of the characters, where otherwise each story on its own won’t have taken the movie far enough. Nicolas Cage really brings it as Grug, reminding everyone that he is a good actor.

Unfortunately, besides Grug, Eep, and Guy, the characters become a bit one-note. There’s a lot of room to explore there, if a sequel is made. The movie’s biggest failing is that there isn’t quite enough of it – there could have been more character development, and more back story – Guy especially could have used more filling out. I would have liked to see more of where he came from. Though the movie does keep each of the characters distinct, and they play to their strengths – that’s part of the movie’s message actually.

The movie’s humor relies on a mix of physical humor and anachronisms, and they do it well. It is stupid at times, but the creators’ applies the same creativity present in the rest of the movie to the jokes. Take the ‘shellphones’ for example – there’s the obvious cellphone parallel, but they also use them practically and the joke pays off in a really moving moment later on. There is a lot of repeated jokes that could wear thin, but they limited their use and again they pay off in non-joke ways.

The world of the movie is colorful and creative, and stunningly beautiful even in the most stark locations. Just enjoy it and don’t expect any sort of historical/scientific accuracy – there is a giant owl/cat, a tropical-colored giant cat, land whales, bunny-bats, and flying piranhas. An elephant with giraffe markings is probably the least crazy thing on screen. I loved it all!

There was a scene towards the end of the movie that gave me chills, because they visual artists had so perfectly nailed the look of pyroclastic flow. And then there’s the scene with the stars and just… wow. It amazes me some times how far computer graphics have come in my lifetime.

Okay, one last thing I wanted to mention – Eep’s design. If there is anything about this movie that should be praised up and down it is her design. She has an ‘hourglass’ silhouette, but her design places an emphasis on her strength and weight.  She looks like she belongs in the world she inhabits. She’s also unapologetically herself – she’s proud of her strength and her weight, she’s capable, and she does her share of the rescuing, all without sacrificing her femininity. And the same can be said about her mother, though she received a psudo-makeover partway through. Really the only one here that’s eye candy is Guy, and that’s part of the joke.

Go see this movie. It’s not a five-star bombshell, but it’s funny, and touching, and beautiful. Fingers crossed for a decent sequel.