Of all the animated movies I’ve seen this year (academic), The Croods definitely comes up first place. In fact, it gets a special mention, because my Mum liked it, and that’s a hard feat for an animated film these days.

From writer and director Chris Sanders (the man behind Lilo and Stitch) comes this awesome story of a prehistoric family, the Croods, who live in a cave because father Grug (Nicholas Cage) believes that anything new is bad and refuses to let them explore. They’re all used to it except for oldest daughter Eep (Emma Stone) who is a little bit of a rebel and wants to explore instead of just sitting in the dark with her mother, younger siblings and a crazy grandmother who refuses to die. Then one day Eep goes against Grug’s rules and follows a strange light only to meet Guy (Ryan Reynolds) and his sloth Belt (Chris Sanders himself, I did spend the whole film thinking ‘boy that sounds kinda like Stitch) who predict the end of the world, calling it “the end” (Ta-ta-taaaaaa). When their prediction rings true, Grug has to follow Guy’s lead as he’s thrown out of his comfort zone and into the unknown.

The movie is hilarious from start to finish. John Cleese was one of the writers and may have had his hands in the dialogues, but even so the move strikes a great balance between a visually stunning movie and a sound plot with good characters. While targeted at children, I believe that The Croods, just like Toy Story, Shrek and many other animated movies, is in fact a grown-up movie in disguise. Yes, it’s all drawn and cute and fluffy and with silly jokes, BUT it explores deeper subjects like fear, courage, family values and love.

If you haven’t been able to catch it at the cinema, get your hands on the DVD as soon as it comes out and enjoy the magic 😀

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Pictures from: babycenter.com, intel.com, escapepod.org, wordpress.com