Solid family movie

Rating: 7/10 (25 March 2013)

Eep is a teenage cavegirl who badly wants to spread her wings. Trouble is that Dad Grug is overprotective, afraid of everything, and keeps the family shut up in the cave all the time so that they are not exposed to risks. Then handsome young Guy comes along, full of ideas and open to exploring the world, Eep is entranced, and Grug's authority and philosophy is challenged.
I think one can over-examine this film - by any rational standards, Grug is doing exactly the right thing for his family, and making him the fall guy made me feel a little uneasy. So perhaps it is best to take a step backwards and just look at this as a family movie, on which grounds it succeeds admirably. It is exciting, there are a lot of laughs, the design (characters, environments, quirky creatures) is brilliant, the movie is spectacular, and the voice characterisation is good (Emma Stone's Eep is a bit shrill, but then, she's an excitable teenager).
The big surprise is that the movie, which the trailer sells as a rite of passage story for Eep, isn't about her at all, it's about Grug learning to change. My only real complaint is that Grug's resistance to change goes on for so long, and in circumstances where it is so massively stupid, that it becomes somewhat tiresome. For all that, the family will enjoy it.
The 3D has its moments.