The Croods: A New Age Movie Review - Heartfelt, Colorful Adventure!

In The Croods: A New Age, the family searches for a new home. When they come upon the huge compound of the “more-evolved” Bettermans, their relationships and those with the new family create unique challenges. Eep (voice of Emma Stone) and Guy (Ryan Reynolds) are in love but will it last? Can dad Grug (Nicolas Cage) keep his family as he knows it or will everyone have to adapt? And what secret threat is the Bettermans hiding?

The Croods meet the BettermansCourtesy of DreamWorks Animation

Guy’s Origin

Guy, who joined the Crood family a while back, remembers the day that, as a little kid, he had to leave this parents who were stuck and sinking in a tar pit. They told him to go and find “tomorrow”. He looked and looked, found little sloth friend and named him Belt and was a teen before he found his first humans, the Croods. When he met Eep she tried to kill him but now they’re in love. The whole family rides on giant prehistoric cat Chunky looking for a new home. Eep tells us there have been many obstacles on the way like an attack of weird kangaroo-like creatures. Grug hears lovesick Eep and Guy talk about leaving to start their own pack. Guy gives Eep a rock with their figures on it (engagement rock). Grug is shattered. His little girl can’t leave!

Eep comes to rescue her dadCourtesy of DreamWorks Animation

The Promised Land

The Croods stumble upon an oasis full of water and yummy fruit. They chow down but are caught up in a net trap while weird chicken-seals sound an alarm that brings a couple to check it out. They are the Bettermans, Hope (Leslie Mann) and Phil (Peter Dinklage). They are more evolved and are shocked to see that cave people still exist. They know Guy! They were his parents’ best friends. They thought he was dead. Inside the Betterman’s extensive tree house home, the family meets Dawn (Kelly Marie Tran), their daughter, an old playmate of Guy’s. Of course Eep is a bit jealous but thrilled to meet another teenage girl.

Eep and Dawn are thrilled to meet another teen girlCourtesy of DreamWorks Animation

Changes

The Croods’ sleep pile is broken up when they are given their own separate guest rooms. Things like mirrors and windows freak them out. Ugga (Catherine Keener) the Crood mom, wants to stay here. Grug hates it. The Bettermans secretly want Guy and Dawn to be a couple and want the primitive Croods to move on. They put Guy in clothes like theirs. Eep is shocked. He’s changing.

Guy has changedCourtesy of DreamWorks Animation

Dawn envies Eep’s many battle scars. She wants an adventure but her parents won’t let her outside their wall. She and Eep ride Chunky up over the wall to some wild adventures including an allergic bee sting for Dawn. At home, Guy looks at old pictures of the two families and marvels over a new invention….a toilet! Hope makes it clear to Ugga that she expects the family, without Guy, to move on.

Guy and friends discover a toiletCourtesy of DreamWorks Animation

Manipulation  

Phil tells Grug that he can eat anything on the property except the bananas. He can’t eat them ever. In Phil’s mancave sauna, he convinces Grug that if Eep is to continue to stay with the Croods, Guy must stay here and be with Dawn instead but Ugga convinces Grug otherwise.

Phil convinces Grug to leave Guy behindCourtesy of DreamWorks Animation

Phil is controlling him! They need to get Guy and leave. When Eep and Dawn come back from their adventure, Guy scolds Eep for getting Dawn hurt. Her bee-stung hand is hugely swollen. Guy calls Eep a cavegirl, like that is very bad. She is hurt and angry. Over dinner everything comes out, the Betterman’s plans for Guy etc. Eep breaks up with Guy.

Will Guy stay with the happy Bettermans?Courtesy of DreamWorks Animation

The Monsters

Angry, the Croods eat ALL of the bananas. Phil freaks out. He tells them that a monster comes for them every night! If they aren’t there, he will attack. The “monster” turns out to be thousands of feisty, pissed-off monkeys who capture Guy, Grug and Phil while the women plus dim Crood brother Thunk (Clark Duke) follow them with little sister Sandy  sniffing the ground tracking the guys. They fall into a river while the guys end up in the huge cave home of the weird monkeys who plan to sacrifice them to their own monster who comes for the bananas they usually get from Phil. Turns out that when Phil diverted their river to his own oasis, their banana crop died.

Grug isn't that happy that his family loves it hereCourtesy of DreamWorks Animation

Thunder Sisters

The women fight then bond when Eep saves Hope from a pack of wolf-like critters. Gran (Cloris Leachman) reveals she was once the leader of a long lost tribe of Amazon-like “Thunder Sisters”. While the guys argue then bond a bit and expect to be eaten by a giant orangutan, the women plus Thunk are recruited by Gran to be fierce warriors and ride Chunky and the big wolf creatures to the rescue.  Will they be successful? Will Guy and Eep get back together? Can the Croods and Bettermans ever co-exist peacefully and appreciate one another’s differences?

Guy and Dawn are reunitedCourtesy of DreamWorks Animation

Wrapping Up

The Croods: A New Age is stocked full of family drama that you might relate to; lots of relationship crises, lots of personal self-evaluation angst and finally family or core group unity. Can we ever relate to and bond with those who are different than we are? All of this is very contemporary while being represented by animated, prehistoric characters who are surrounded by threats from Mother Nature, colorful, hybrid animals and in the midst of a fight for survival. Sometimes it’s pure brainpower vs. brave physical kick-butt action.

Eep and Dawn are new bestiesCourtesy of DreamWorks Animation

There is something or somebody in the film for everyone; a fun love triangle, girlpower bonding, bro-bonding, conflict between parents, a granny who reconnects with her power and a teen guy glued to a “screen” rather than experiencing what’s around him.

Thunk is sweet but dimCourtesy of DreamWorks Animation

All of the voice actors are just crushing it bigtime and each character is amazingly unique. The story might go on a bit too long but action is fast-paced and/or funny as is dialogue so you’ll be entertained. Visually, the colorful locations and creative prehistoric animals will be eye candy.

This fun movie might just do the trick do drag you out of your quarantine blues. We liked it so much that we award five stars!

The Croods: A New Age Movie Rating: 

Courtesy of DreamWorks Animation

See The Croods: A New Age in theaters now and to rent digitally before Christmas!