The original Croods was always going to get a sequel. The first film was neatly wrapped with loveable characters and the prehistoric world they live in was ripe for franchising. Dreamworks has done this before with Shrek and Madagascar getting the cash registers ringing. And that’s before you take into consideration the spin-offs and TV series.
So, what has changed in the Croods’ world that reflects what has taken place in ours? Well, just like life in 2021, survival in a land full of chaos and peril, everything is louder. MUCH LOUDER.
This is, in essence, the inevitable result of a suggestion from someone in the ‘ideas station’ saying ‘Hey, why don’t we update The Flintstones?’
The Croods was never subtle in its pacing of jokes. The writers didn’t care if a punchline was missed, as there would be another one coming along anyway. For this instalment Joel Crawford directs with much the same template.
Here the crude (doyasee?) Croods meet the Bettermans (doyasee?) and there nefarious plan to whisk away Guy (Ryan Reynolds) from the lovely Eep (with Emma Stone reprising her role). The Bettermans have green fingers and have cultivated a much more lavish and lush landscape than Grug (Nicolas Cage) has been used to.
How will the rowdy rubble cope in the face of such exciting developments and one up-person-ship?
“We need to help them understand they have a bright future outside these walls,” Hope Betterman (Leslie Mann) tells her husband, Phil (Peter Dinklage), in ‘educating’ their new friends on modern living.
This isn’t the only update viewers will recognize here, as it’s the men who need saving from the film’s BIG BAD, for clues, see an aversion to bananas and huge footprints. Plus the women who should be frenemies team up to overcome the bigger obstacles: life and Punch Monkeys.
The New Age kicks off at a breakneck pace with an attack of the Kangadillos and barely lets up. While the animation is routinely superb, watching The Croods v.2 is akin to being on a plane with a toddler screaming in your ear from the chair behind.
You know the wee bairn means you no harm, but your head hurts anyway.
The kids will love it for the colours and the chases, the parents less so. But, and there is a but, a couple of the fart jokes will muster a chuckle from even the most serious of film fans.
To win a pair of tickets to the Croods 2: The New Age, at Kinepolis, simply tell us the name of the film in which Nicolas Cage demands his bunny be given back. Answers to contenttoday@rtl.lu
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