Our husband and wife reviewing team quibble over The Croods: A New Age.
SCORES
Zanna's rating of the movie: 4
Greg's rating of the movie: 2
Zanna's rating of Greg's review of the movie: 1
HE SAW
Predictably, the kids were uncritical. "Good" they all said afterwards, when asked for their thoughts. Zanna then asked which bit they liked most, at which point I felt compelled to intervene, pointing out that the question was too closed and imposing instead my own suggestion: "What did you like about it?" All the kids replied with one word answers, so all I achieved with that was to make Zanna angry. Casper (3) liked the punch monkeys, which are creatures that communicate with each other using an elaborate pattern of physical violence. This was predictable, given the frequency with which he says to me: "I'm going to punch you in the balls," then does so. I don't remember who the girls liked.
The movie tells a fairly conventional culture clash story, following a prehistoric family living a rugged life of lack, staring down the near-constant threat of death, and eventually stumbling upon an ostensible utopia - safe and filled with food and conveniences - belonging to a family of more evolutionarily advanced humans who, boringly and predictably, turn out to have a lot to learn from the more "primitive" species. The movie's not totally without charm - it has a few laughs and other moments where it's not impenetrably pointless. I thought there was going to be a lesbian love story at one stage, but it quickly petered out into predictable heteronormativity. It wouldn't have taken much rewriting and would have made for a vastly superior movie: more morally complex, more thoughtful, more evocative of the questions of evolution it largely fails to explore, more challenging of the stereotypes it otherwise mostly perpetuates. It made me wonder if and when we might see a same-sex love story in a major children's film and why we haven't already.