The Movie

The Croods are just your basic cavepeople family - mother, father, three kids... but they are the only ones still around. All of their neighbours have succumbed to the dangers of the prehistoric world, but the Croods have made it because they have followed the rules inscribed on their cave walls: anything new and foreign is bad. While family father Grug (Nicholas Cage) strictly enforces these rules to ensure their survival, the rest of the family held together by mother Ugga (Catherine Keener) is not so enthusiastic about their lifestyle. Daugther Eep (Emma Stone) suffers the most and when she accidentially meets a fire-carrying boy called Guy (Ryan Renolds) traveling through their valley, she is amazed. But when he tells her that the world is ending and the first earthquakes rattle the ground, she has a hard time convincing her family to trust Guy to bring them to safety...

Like every movie studio, Dreamworks Animation always has a lot of ideas and concepts kicking around, but only few of them make it to the big screen and some never get developed at all. For a long time, it looked like The Croods was one of the latter - the idea for a caveman movie had been around as early as 2000, but had not actually come from the usual Dreamworks haunts. Ex-Monty Python John Cleese and American screenwriter Kirk De Micco had been working together on a project based on Roald Dahl's The Twits and while Dreamworks Animation had no real interest in this idea, they invited the authors to pitch another idea, which became basically a prehistoric comedy of two cavemen on the run.

In 2005, it was widely reported that Cleese and De Micco would be writing Crood Awakening together not for an all-digital Dreamworks production, but for Aardman Animations, the british stop-motion masters who were two movies into a five-picture deal with the American studio and still on the lookout for new ideas. How far the scriptwriting actually had progressed was never revealed, but when Aardman and Dreamworks parted way at the end of 2007 when the collaboration turned out to be a clash of cultures, the rights of Crood Awakening went back to Dreamworks, who chose to turn it into a cgi-animated movie after all. While John Cleese left the project, Kirk De Micco stayed on and soon got a new writing partner.

Chris Sanders, who had previously worked as a storyboard artist and later as writer and director for Disney since the 1990s, joined Dreamworks in 2006 after he was fired from the movie that later became Bolt. His first project at the studio was to join forces with Kirk De Micco to write and co-direct Crood Awakening, but there was trouble brewing when Sanders was drafted to save another project. How To Train Your Dragon had been in production for some time when the studio realized that it needed a completely new approach and fired Peter Hastings, the previous director, to turn the movie over to Chris Sanders and his writing partner Dean DeBlois. They both saved the movie and made it into one of the best and most profitable Dreamworks productions - at the cost of postponing Crood Awakening for at least two years.

When How To Train Your Dragon was finally finished, Chris Sanders was able to return Crood Awakening, which by now had been re-titled The Croods due to some heavy changes in the scriptwriting process. He and Kirk de Micco decided to abandon the idea of two differently-minded characters in prehistoric times to focus on a family story - but with some decidedly Dreamworks-like twists. BlueSky Animation had already explored the prehistoric world in the Ice Age movies through the perspective of the animal world, but thankfully Chris Sanders and Kirk De Micco did not succumb to the temptation of doing another talking-animal-show. Instead the animals stayed silent and the humans were given all the dialogue.

While the basic concept is a little like the Flintstones, the story actually does almost without anachronisms. There are no stone-cars or even houses - the Crood family lives, like your basic cavemen do - in a cave, and that's where the plot begins to take shape. There is a little similarity to the Ice Age franchise: the characters are being forced out of their familiar environment by the force of nature and have to take a road trip into the unknown. But the parallels end here and the story continues as an admittedly slightly generic, but still surprisingly original tale of a cavemen family trying to survive in a changing world. Fortunately, The Croods is not missing what was sorely lacking in Dreamworks Animation's previous movie, Rise of the Guardians: good storytelling.

The Croods is, of course, partly a run-of-the-mill family story and even has some moral background, but in the typical Dreamworks fashion it is far away from being a tearful and heartbreaking drama. Instead, the filmmakers developed family dynamics with a very satirical and even cynical slant, making the Croods at least part parody. While the actual plot is not much to talk about, the story is divided into several episodes following the trek of the family, who has to rely on an outsider to cope with the changing environment. This has much potential for many action sequences, which are liberally sprinkled throughout the movie, but never hinder the plot too much to be annoying and do not only fit closely into the storytelling, but also advance it every time. The opening egg hunt scene may seem gratuitous, but all others that follow are seamlessy integrated into the plot.

There is a fair amount of hitting, slapping, roughing and tumbling, but the decidedly cartoonish violence is never meant serious and no one gets really hurt. It may seem to be a bit of a bad role model for younger viewers, but much of it is well-choreographed and intensly funny slapstick, leaving the impression that the Croods are a very tough bunch, who are not injured that easily. While the family only seems to be a danger to itself sometimes, the real threat in the story comes from some of the bigger animals - most of which turn out to be friendly later - and, of course, the freshly changing geology. Despite being inherently a humorous story, there is a real sense of urgency and trepidation driving the plot, but the atmosphere remains light-hearted and funny even in some thoughtful and serious sequences. This works mainly because the story has no real antagonist except nature itself.

The finely-tuned script also knows how to employ its humour to reach both younger and older viewers equally well, something which had been a huge problem with Rise of the Guardians. The Croods is entirely family-friendly, but despite the basic plot still intelligent enough to be very entertaining for adults, who can enjoy a lot of satirical subtext going completely over the heads of the younger audience. Most of it is hidden in the dialogue, of which the movie mainly seems to consist. Again compared to Rise of the Guardians, The Croods is much more talkative and does not have one line of cringe-worthy dialogue and only a very few jokes seem to fall slightly flat.

Making Eep, the teenage daugther of the Croods the leading character of the movie is surprisingly still unprecedented - it's the first time in the history of Dreamworks Animation that the filmmakers have chosen a female protagonist and although it is an ensemble story, she still stands out as the one driving parts of the plot. Eep is voiced by Emma Stone, one of the most sought-after young Hollywood actresses at the moment, who had started her movie career after a couple of television gigs with the comedy Superbad and has since graduated to big-budget action films like the Spiderman reboot. While this is certainly a case of star casting, Emma Stone was actually the perfect choice for Eep, bringing exactly the right amount of self-confidence and rebellion to a character who is definitively not the sterotypical teenage girl, although the story certainly has a little bit of fun in that respect with her. Stone sounds remarkably unforced and natural and even brings a little earnest emotion into her character without overacting, but most of all she is really funny and belts out her lines with much enthusiasm. Aided by her slightly rough voice she really sounds like a cave girl in the most charming way.

Eeps father Grug is a sort of Homer Simpson caveman. On the other hand he keeps the family alive with his conservative leadership of avoiding everything new and foreign, but when he is forced to change, he becomes immensly stubborn and sometimes downright stupid - it takes a cataclysm of events to convince him that his way may not be the way to survive. Grug is a fun character to watch in the way you watch a disaster unfolding and can't stop looking - in the end, the family head regains his senses, but there are parts of the story where there seems no way back in his immense stubbornness. His voice is provided by Nicholas Cage, who may also be a big star, but not really a good character actor - he can growl and shout appropriately, but when he is not in overdrive mode he fails to give Grug any proper emotion, since he mostly sounds the same all the time. While the character is certainly well developed, Nicholas Cage's voice work is a rare case of miscasting in a Dreamworks Animation movie - he is not jaw-droppingly bad, but there are other actors who would have done a much better job with Grug.

The Third major player in this ensemble cast is a young fellow called Guy (names are definitively not a strong thing of the script), who may be a remnant of an earlier script that starred an inventor and a luddite battling their differences out on their way to safety. This is actually what happens between the progressive, inventive and sometimes a bit too clever Guy and the old-fashioned and stubborn Grug, which makes for an interesting dynamic - Grug may be the stronger one, but Guy often has the upper hand because he uses his brain - and the help of his strange, long-armed marsupial companion Belt - more than his muscles. Of course there's also a little romance between Guy and Eep, but this is played mostly to a comedic effect. The voice of Guy is another Hollywood star, the surprisingly funny and competent Ryan Renolds, who is a great vocal sparring partner for Emma Stone. He makes his character sound just the right amount of cocky and smart-alecky without being a nuisance - and in contrast to the dull Nicholas Cage, he even brings a little heartfelt emotion into his character.

The rest of the characters are equally important, but surprisingly not very numerous because the filmmakers have wisely resisted of cramming the story with too many different roles. First there is Ugga, the mother of the family and maybe the most rational and intelligent of the Croods - Grug may be calling the shots, but it is her who keeps the family together. The authors seem conflicted in making her either a traditional family mother or a cool supermom, but in the end she stays a bit in the shadow of her whole family. Her voice is quite unconspicuously provided by the busy, but not widely known Hollywood actress Catherine Keener, who does a magnificent job only hindered by the fact that the script does not give her enough dialogue to really shine. Thunk, her son and Eeps younger - and much stupider - brother definitively takes after his father and is mainly in the story for humorous purposes. His voice actor Clark Duke therefore has to be funny, but he is actually successful in portraying Thunk as a younger version of his father between a lot of somewhat silly humour aimed at younger viewers.

The final human character of the cast is Ugga's unnamed mother, who would have been only a disappointing footnote if the authors had not made her a wonderful old bat of a woman, who delights in making her son-in-law suffer as much as possible. Maybe there are a few too much mother-in-law jokes strewn through the whole story, but with the brilliant voice of legendary actress Cloris Leachman, the character of Granny Crood is really one of the most successful and amusing of the whole movie, mainly because she is only used occasionally. Sandy, the baby girl of the family, is not really a character and exhibits more animal than human tendencies - her cute growling voice is surprisingly provided by sound designer Randy Thom. Belt, the long-armed marsupial companion of Guy is actually even more human than Sandy, but thankfully does only speak in gestures - but his squeaking comes from co-director Chris Sanders.

The secret stars of the movies are, however, the animals. Although there are no dinosaurs involved, scientific accuracy was, of course, been thrown a little overboard for the sake of creativity. There are big felines and little canines, whales with legs, piranha birds, boxing monkeys, little elephant mice and a lot more - and even though some of them are only very briefly seen, they are all wonderfully designed in every great detail. The beast collection of The Croods may be the most amazing since the Ice Age franchise, simply because the production designers and animators seem to have had enormeuos fun creating the numerous creatures inhabiting the world of the Croods.

Compared to the animal world, the humans of the movie are relatively unspectacular. Ever since Shrek had raised the bar for human character design more than a decade ago, Dreamworks has been trying to find a compromise between realism and a more cartoon-esque approach, but has never embraced one or the other fully. The Croods definitively leans more to the cartoonish side, which was unavoidable considering that the protagonists are cavepeople. So we have over- and undersized proportions, a little too big eyes, knobbly noses - but considering they are supposed to be a sort of prehistoric human, they look surprisingly normal. Especially Eep and Guy sport faces and bodies that could have come from any other Dreamworks Animation production, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. What the characters all share are their very expressive faces, which despite all the cartoonishness makes them extremely lifelike and realistic.

Because The Croods is essentially a road movie, the scenery is always changing and never dull - from the rocky desert of the family's home to lush and colourful jungles and barren volcanic wastelands there is a lot to look at in the backgrounds. The production design and art direction from old Dreamworks hands Christopher Lautrette and Paul Duncan joined by Dominique Louis, who recently jumped ship from Pixar, often looks amazingly real and almost gives the impression that the CGI characters have been inserted into a real environment, enormeously helped by the brilliantly smooth animation. The virtual camera work, again created with the help of cinematographer Roger Deakins, is sometimes a little overzealous and too much focused on the 3D opportunities, but also works fine in the flat 2D version.

After Rise of the Guardians had broken the dominance of Dreamworks Music director Hans Zimmer's stable of composers with Alexandre Desplat penning the film score, it seems that Chris Sanders was able to get his favourite composer for The Croods, Alan Silvestri. He had already worked with him at Disney on Lilo & Stitch and he reportedly had already tried to bring him in on How To Train Your Dragon. Silvestri, who had become a little too formulaic in the 1990s, is back on the top of his game here, providing a wonderfully versatile and playful score full of different styles.

The majority of the movie is dominated by traditional orchestral arrangements, but even these are sometimes supplemented by surprisingly creative rhythms, which sometimes all but take over and even deviate into smooth jazz and calypso occasionally. The main theme is heard in many different variations and culminates in the only pop song of the movie, Shine Your Way, which is played over the closing credits and is sung as a duet between the Malaysian pop singer Yuna and Adam Young of Owl City, presumably as the voices of Eep and Guy. While the song's lyrics are somewhat simple and the arrangement is nothing special, it still sounds great and is an uplifting and positive conclusion of the movie.

With The Croods, Dreamworks seems to be its old self again after the strange diversion of Rise of the Guardians. Even though the production had been delayed for over one year because of How To Train Your Dragon, Chris Sanders and Kirk De Micco had done everything right with their movie and seem to have learned from the faults of the studio's previous effort. The good storytelling is back with a strong script based on original ideas, a light and funny mood and exactly the right amount of lovable characters. The Croods had become a thoroughly enjoyable movie right in the vein of earlier Dreamworks productions, catering for both children and adults without abandining one of the target groups altogether.

Dreamworks had banked a lot on The Croods after the boxoffice failure of Rise of the Guardians. Surprisingly, the movie's world premiere was not held in the USA, but out of competition at the Berlin International Film Festival in February 2013 - presumably in an unfavourable German dub, but the audience and critics still loved it and even Jeffrey Katzenberg, Nicholas Cage and Emma Stone were flown in for the publicity. When the movie finally came to cinemas worldwide about one month later, it had one of the better opening weekends of a Dreamworks Animation production. While it took only a relatively average 187 Million Dollars in the USA, the worldwide boxoffice added another 400 Million, making The Croods a resounding success and possibly the one movie that saved the studio.

Nobody expected much of The Croods, for some critics it was even the Aardman movie taken over by Dreamworks. While it would have been interesting to see the story being made in stop-motion by Aardman, Dreamworks Animation has actually done the idea great justice. It may not be exactly the movie John Cleese and Kirk de Micco had originally envisioned, but it's a surprisingly fresh and original take on the caveman concept which was not only able to get the interest of the audience, but also managed to convinced most critics. The studio itself was also pleased with the result and not long after the successful premiere announced that The Croods would be followed by a sequel and possibly a television series, making the movie into another one of Dreamworks' franchises.

The DVD

After the Spring release of The Croods, the movie took the usual six to seven months to arrive on DVD and Blu-Ray in October 2013 worldwide. It was the first Dreamworks Animation release from 20th Century Fox, which had taken over the distribution from Paramount. While it is good to see that the release rhythm has not been changed, there has been something lost in this change: the audio commentary, which is not only a casualty on DVD, but also on the Blu-Ray. Thankfully the DVD edition contains almost all extras from the highdef release, but the absence of the traditional commentary track make this DVD a bit of a disappointment in terms of bonus materials. The unobtrusive Paramount branding is now also thing of the past - both the DVD and the movie now open with the Fox logo and fanfare, while Paramount had never stuck its logo in front of the Dreamworks movies.

The DVD reviewed in this article is the German PAL DVD of The Croods, simply because I was able to get it for the lowest price, but all DVDs seem to be almost identical worldwide. Unlike the Paramount Dreamworks releases, the German disc seems to be manufactured for Southwest Europe and it even has a fully German artwork on the disc itself. Apart from the absent audio commentary and some insignificant missing extras the disc is technically on the highest level and certainly a great representation of the movie.

Image

Coming from the 16:9 frame filling Rise of the Guardians, The Croods again switches back to the wide 2.35:1 scope format, which is as usual presented on this DVD in anamorphic 16:9. The DVD, of course, only contains the 2D version, but the perfect quality of the recent Dreamworks releases has not changed with 20th Century Fox - this DVD delivers a near high-definition quality.

As usual, the image dazzles with a clean and completely unfiltered downsizing from the high-definition master to the DVD resolution - not a bit of detail seems to have been abandonded, what is really lost would only be noticeable in a direct comparison. There are no oversharpened edges or other artifacts, the image looks very clean and unprocessed, but at the same time not lifeless or digital. Colour reproduction is also excellent from the almost sepia tones of the opening sequence to the brilliantly colourful later scenes.

The bitrate is not as high as on the previous Dreamworks releases, but the encoding is absolutely flawless and does not exhibit the slightest trace of compression artifacts.

Sound

The Croods was one of the first movies using in the next-generation multichannel system Dolby Atmos, but the usual 7.1 and 5.1 mixes for standard cinemas and home theaters were of course also prepared. The German DVD of The Croods comes with altogether four different language soundtracks in full 5.1, one more than on the previous Dreamworks releases. Sadly, again no PAL speedup corrections have been made so the European DVDs all sound 4% faster than the Blu-Ray and cinema releases.

The English 5.1 track sports a much more than usual active soundmix with a very realistic design. The surround channels are frequently in use and the frontal soundstage is fully utilized, providing a fully immersive audio experience. Even the dialogue is not limited to the center channel and frequently roams around. Despite all the effort, the detailed sound editing headed by Randy Thom never goes completely over the top or lets the prehistoric setting appear too modern. Alan Silvestri's music has been smoothly integrated into the mix and fills the remaining gaps in the surround mix, making it a very pleasant and not too agressive track.

The dubbed versions in German, Spanish and Catalan (the latter might be a first for a Dreamworks DVD) have an identical soundmix save for the voices, which have the usual sterile sound studio atmosphere the English original manages to avoid very well. Subtitles are provided in all these languages plus, for some reason, Turkish.

Extras

The bonus materials of the DVD releases of The Croods are sadly the real disappointment of the disc. Some missing featurettes from the Blu-Rays are not that bad and the inclusion of the deleted scenes is very welcome, but the complete absence of a commentary track on all editions makes the extras a huge letdown. The menus are completely static apart from a short opening animation.

Belt's Cave Journal (6:01) is just a narrated slideshow of drawings, not even a properly animated movie - it's strictly for the younger viewers only.

Croods' Cuts (8:02) contains the only real extra of the disc - a small, but interesting collection of the four deleted scenes Crazy Grug, It's Rain, It's A Great Cave and Termites together with a short introduction by the filmmakers.

The Theatrical Trailer (2:06) of the movie itself is surprisingly on this disc and not like on the Dreamworks releases on another movie's release.

Sneak Peek contains trailers of Turbo, Epic and Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters.

World of Dreamworks Animation is the usual collection of musical-themed film clips from the studio's franchises Shrek, Madagascar, How To Train Your Dragon and Kung Fu Panda.