Directed By Joel Crawford

Starring – Nicholas Cage, Emma Stone, Ryan Reynolds

The Plot – The prehistoric family the Croods are challenged by a rival family the Bettermans, who claim to be better and more evolved.

Rated PG for peril, action and rude humor.

POSITIVES

– Vibrancy of color. This feels like the next evolutionary shift for Dreamworks Productions, whose combination of candy-coated animation and tremendous eye for detail bring forth what is arguably the most visually appealing film of 2020. On a character distinction level, the hair feels fully realized, complete with a level of three-dimensional flowing in the wind that transcends the usual limitations within animated properties. The variety of breathtaking landscapes is definitely the constant attention stealer, however, immersing us hypnotically in a rainbow rampant jungle, complete with as many fruits and candies to supplant Willy Wonka for multiple generations. The animation’s entirety is in the three-dimensional style of enveloping that has been all of the rage with Pixar and Laika productions over the last twenty years, but Dreamworks step forward here finally feels like one that supplants them in the fight against their peers, and gives them an advantage in the fantastical elements that their journey’s indulge us in.

– Humor elevation. What made “A New Age” a superior sequel in my eyes was the effectiveness of its material, which I feel offers plenty to the many age groups in the audience taking in its escapism. Almost immediately, I notice a respect for the performers who are voicing these characters, and their abilities to sell reactions with the kind of emotional depth that make each of them professionals. This keeps the film from settling for loud noises and flatulence humor, which seems all the rage with contemporary kids movies, and instead aspires them to try a little harder in these dialogue-driven deliveries that surprisingly brought forth several moments of hearty laughter for this critic. What’s important is that nothing ever feels too smart or convoluted for its child-dominant majority in audience, nor does it ever feel repetitive in just hammering home the same five jokes. It’s very much an intelligent screenplay that doesn’t substitute comedy for its moments of heartfelt compassion, instead valuing both enough to supplanting an experience that is fun above all else.

– Social commentary. As is the case with the better animated films of the past decade, “A New Age” instills a variety of themes from our own social climate to play into its many characters and distinct situations. In my first viewing, I was able to lift gentrification, social class, and racism as just a couple of the themes that dominate this screenplay. There are occasional moments of heavy handed exposition delivered in the dialogue, like the antagonist family being called “The Betterman’s”, or that the entire story takes place from within a wall that surrounds our characters, but for the most part the material’s capabilities in conjuring up a series of problems that plague our nation now more than ever being instilled to a Neanderthal tribe is nothing short of brilliant for how it ties the generational gap seamlessly tighter than expected. It proves that these problems have always been there, but more important than that, how little we’ve grown and learned from them, and gives the movie’s agenda a slice of much-needed urgency that did help hammer home the special message that any child audience will easily be able to pick up and hopefully inflict in their own lives towards making the world a better place.

– Magnetic cast. The work from top tier names like Nicolas Cage, Emma Stone, Ryan Reynolds, Catherine Keener, Cloris Leachman, Leslie Mann, and especially Peter Dinkledge is nothing short of pivotal to the movie’s success factor, as well as fully fleshing out these characters in a way that makes them irresistible to the audience. In that regard, Cage is the most valuable player for me, bringing forth his familiarity in sheer, utter craziness to an animated rendering that appreciates the finer points of such an unpredictable element. The visual chemistry between two of my personal favorites in Stone and Reynolds was also resoundingly conveyed in a series of banter that felt synthetic with the pulse of teenage interaction. Of the new additions, it’s definitely Dinkledge who continuously kept my attention throughout, and has the time of his life as this patient guru of sorts with his own ulterior motives. The rivalry between he and Cage affords the movie several moments of tense interaction that often gets the best of the latter, and preserves the former’s capabilities of continuously pushing his buttons.

– Endless imagination. This is seen through the action set pieces, which are every bit thrilling in the movement of the camera as they are distinguishing of a particular personality. These are fun sequences that never hinder the true urgency or vulnerability of the execution because of the thrills they invoke, doing so on a spin of swift movements and sharp editing that bottle as much of the momentum between cuts as possible. It documents and immerses us so cleverly in the heat of the sequence to the point that you practically feel the wind flowing through your hair, exhilarating us to the limit of motion sickness without that bottoming out feeling reaching precedent. It leads to a final confrontation sequence that explodes ferocity in a stream of color and collision that demands to be seen on the biggest screen possible for the spectacle of it all, and cements the most energetic animated action sequences since the “How To Train Your Dragon” trilogy redefined kids fantasy epics.

– Risky rating. Coming out of this film, I was truly shocked to learn that it was rated PG, because of the stakes of the material that never went unnoticed in my eyes or ears. Aside from some candid moments of adult humor that slide carefully in between lines that are defined as something entirely different for a childlike audience, the movie’s abundance of bloodless violence and brunt brutality impressed me in harvesting an element of unpredictability for the production. It gave me several moments of eye-opening reality to break the moments of fantastical visuals that I was constantly transfixed in, and forced me to pay closer attention for the next instance of permanency that I damn sure wasn’t going to miss. Nothing is ever truly gory or traumatizing for a child taking them in, but I commend any kids movies not afraid to show the ugly side of war, complete with arrows through faces, and group stoning’s that only feel PG if we’re talking 80’s standards.

– Clever musical inserts. I won’t even begin to spoil what songs this soundtrack brilliantly borrows for. Instead, I will commend it for the ways they are introduced to each sequence, which not only define the essence of the scene long before the imagery does, but also dares the audience not to engage in the audible familiarity of decades gone by. There are certainly some deep cuts in regards to a lack of global popularity for certain tracks, but it’s an inclusion that only makes me further appreciate what it was going for, and banking on an ideal that is much stronger than an intention to sell downloads, which some of these tracks inevitably won’t once you hear which ones I’m talking about. My favorite is definitely between a bromance that halts the progression of everything surrounding it for the better, and offers an 80’s callback that redefines what Adam Sandler did for it in “The Wedding Singer”.

NEGATIVES

– Third act disputes. For my money, I wish the sudden emergence of an animal antagonist to the group wasn’t realized, and that the claustrophobia and personal differences of the group enclosed in these walls kept precedent over the movie’s prime conflict. This directly contradicts what I said about the action sequences earlier, but I would honestly sacrifice the big one if it kept the movie’s focus on the ideals that are as close to our society as a setting as visually fantastical as this is as ever going to be compared to. It feels like it forces the two sides to work together in a way that doesn’t fully address and heal the differences previously between them, and instead reaches for a decades old cliche that bands them together in the fight against a common enemy. In addition to this, some of the characters during this part in the film aren’t used enough, while others are called upon far too often in a movie that barely clocks in at 87 minutes. It’s easily the weakness between the three acts for me, and takes the film’s momentum down a notch on its way to sewing up its narrative.

– Momentum halters. To say some of the exposition in the script is a bit spoon-fed and nagging of the obviousness at what it pertains towards, is a bit of an understatement. There are three different moments of this film that feel like unnecessary padding derivative of the information we just learned about in a scene or two prior. Then there’s the opening of this movie, which gives the film a feeling like it should be the third in this series, and that this introduction serves as the filler between a second movie that never was. It supplants a lifetime of information in five minutes so forcefully that it doesn’t allow our current story to get off on a natural form of storytelling that paces itself one matter at a time. It’s a brutal information unloading at the very beginning of a movie, and one that weighs heavily on the film we’ve come to see, which takes a while before we eventually move towards.

– Familiar characterization. While the conflict of the movie is explored with an element of sociology and reflection that breathes originality in the narrative, the character growth and evolution feels stilted with an element of redundancy from other exceedingly explored avenues in other movies that hinders its creativity. Grug is once again uncomfortable with change, which is an element to his character in the first movie that I thought he overcame. A series of fears and phobias associated with teenagers living their own lives. A dad insecure about his daughter finding her first love. This and many more is an example of material that has been lifted from plenty of other movies, and done exceptionally better in the clarity evoked from such. This is the element of the film that feels like filler between the more important material, and I feel if the writers spent a little more time better fleshing out their characters, they would find that their unity is their strongest quality, and that by sepearating them we’re constantly reminded of a first movie that in my opinion is inferior to this one.

My Grade: 7/10 or B