“The Croods: A New Age” Review: A Decent Sequel That Will Definitely Entertain The Kids

The Croods: A New Age is directed by Joel Crawford and is the sequel to the highly successful 2013 Dreamworks animated film “The Croods”. This time around we follow The Croods family, who is in search of a new place to call home. After coming across an idyllic walled-in paradise, they discover that it has already been occupied by another family, The Bettermans. Despite rising tensions between the two families, they must work together after a new threat presents itself. The film features the same voice actors from the first film reprising their roles. Such as Emma Stone, Ryan Reynolds, Nicholas Cage, Catherine Keener, and Clark Duke. Along with new cast members Leslie Mann, Peter Dinklage, and Kelly Marie Tran.

Similar to the 2013 film, the animation in this film is top notch. Every single scene in this film is bursting with bright and vibrant colors, as well as beautiful scenery and character design, which is really brought to life by those bright colors. This film is also really well paced. While it did loose a bit of its momentum towards the second act, it picks up greatly in the third act and the film came to a really satisfying conclusion, which is far too rare nowadays. I also attribute to pacing to the fact that this film is also really entertaining, and it managed to keep my attention for the entire 95 minute runtime. However, what really gives the film that extra oomph and distinct feeling is the excellent voice work from the cast, especially from Emma Stone and Kelly Marie Tran, who is almost unrecognizable in her voice performance. None of the vocal performances feel phoned in, and everyone in the cast brought their best effort, and that really shows.

While there is indeed a lot of things to praise, there are some issues that I did have with this film that I'd like to discuss. My main problem is hands down the screenplay. While it did manage to keep the film afloat and fast-paced, the lines can feel a bit rushed at times, and the joke didn’t really land for me. Another problem I had with this film is the overall feeling of the film. This film feels incredibly outdated, and I would say the reason for this is the fact it was supposed to come out in 2017. While it is a film that can distract you from these weird times, it most likely would have benefitted the film better if it had released in 2017 like it was supposed to.

Overall, I feel that this was a decent follow-up to the original film. The animation was top notch, the voice-cast is stellar, and the pacing and entertainment value is on point. However, I feel this film was really held back by the weak screenplay and overall outdated feel. I would still recommend watching this one with the family, as I feel that it's just enough to do the job for the younger kids

Final Grade: B-

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