DreamWorks‘ “The Croods,” inspired by Roald Dahl’s “The Twits,” wasn’t just a hit. It was a box office mega-hit, a ubiquitous phenomenon thanks to its “Ice Age” meets “The Flintstones” premise. Seven years later, the premise has yet to grow old. So when it comes to a sequel, the only mandate is: don’t mess it up.
The good news is they haven’t. The bad news? That’s about it. “The Croods: A New Age” doesn’t represent a giant leap forward for “The Croods” universe, it merely keeps the franchise on track. For many, that’ll be enough: more adventures of Grug (Nicolas Cage), Ugga (Catherine Keener), Thump (Clark Duke), Eeep (Emma Stone), and Guy (Ryan Reynolds). But the movie has all the staying power of a campfire: it eventually flames out.
Once again helmed by Joel Crawford (“Kung Fu Panda”), “A New Age” flickers in and out of our conscious, a diverting way to spend a couple of hours with the kids this holiday season. It’s light and enjoyable, with some sitcom-style drama when the Croods meet another family, The Bettermans, who threaten to change their prehistoric way of life.
That lifestyle is typical of your average caveman: hunting, gathering, and sleeping in piles. Initially, things seem pretty normal in the Croods’ household. Grug is worried about the romance between Eeep and Guy, his daughter and the orphaned boy they picked up along the way in the first movie. After Grug hears of their plan to move out, he finds the solution to keep his tribe together when he happens upon a lush, candy-colored forest of fruits and trees and waterfalls, rendered gorgeously in neon-Technicolor by production designer Nate Wragg.
However, this is the land of Phil (Peter Dinklage) and Hope Betterman (Leslie Mann), a pair of snooty, Stone Age hipsters that live in a house with running water, separate rooms, and, of course, a “man cave.” Turns out, they’re the ones who raised Guy after his parents were killed, and they plan to set Guy up with their daughter, Dawn (Kelly Marie Tran). Awkward!
It’s not long before the Croods clash with the Bettermans, who try to control their lives with a list of house rules, which includes: “no eating the bananas!” Those are used as bribes for the punch monkeys, whose food supply has been cut off. When punch monkeys attack, the two families have to learn to work together, compromise, communicate, and put past differences aside for the common good. The message is anything but subtle.
But compared to other animated films, “A New Age” — which contains no bathroom jokes, no moody ballads, and no dead parents — is sort of a relief. The jokes land more often than they don’t (the screenplay is by Kevin Hageman, Dan Hagemen, Paul Fisher, Bob Logan, Kirk DeMicco, and Chris Sanders). The writers use contemporary tropes to come up with clever bits, including a riff on music videos, and Thunk’s obsession with watching the prehistoric television: a window.
The songs by Mark Mothersbaugh are bangers, naturally, and parents might be glad to discover that the catchiest song on the soundtrack isn’t a new one, but the Partridge Family classic, “I Think I Love You.” If only the rest of the film were more memorable. It’s not a disappointment by any means. It’s what you expect from the characters and the world, and it gets the job done. But the most enthusiasm we can muster of “A New Age” is that it isn’t new — it’s the same primitive family-friendly fare that made the original a box-office sensation. [C+]
“The Croods: A New Age” is available now in theaters.