I'm not sure why, but the trailers for this movie did not make it look particularly appealing to me. Perhaps it was just the strange-looking characters? Perhaps the story just came across as silly? I wasn't sure, so I decided to give it a go anyway.
Turns out it's a good movie. It's funny, exciting, visually impressive, with a pretty good story and likeable characters. I'm not usually impressed with Nicolas Cage's acting, but I thought he did a great job as Grug. It almost goes without saying these days, but the rest of the voice acting was spot-on.
I did have a bit of a problem with the film's "message". Mild spoiler warning I guess, skip this paragraph if you must. Anyway, the father's story arc involves learning to "never be afraid". Now that might be good advice to upper-middle class families in first world countries, but I don't think it works in the context of the movie. Their entire world, the animals, the birds, the plants, and even the planet itself, spend the entire movie trying to kill the Croods. Practically very hour of every day in their lives is a struggle for survival; under those circumstances fear is not only a valid response, it's the correct one. Not being afraid will very quickly get you killed. But I suppose it's more important for children to learn to be brave and enjoy life, so I probably shouldn't complain.
I'm giving it an 8/10; it's a nice fun movie.
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