Stop reading reviews and GO WATCH THIS MOVIE ALREADY!!!

Rating: 10/10 (21 September 2013)

O.K, so I'm past that age where animated movies are supposed to excite you. I still manage to see most of them but just not with the same zeal as a younger person would; the jokes seem a bit juvenile, the comedy more slapstick than stimulating and try as I might, I can't be bothered to care for a cartoon character as I would if it were being played by an actual person. That being said, this one took me completely by surprise. The characters were played by the leads to a tee. Nicholas Cage as the overprotective control freak of a father, Ryan Reynolds as the easily spooked outsider who shows the Croods how to use their brains instead of brawn and Emma Stone as the high-spirited youngster with an inquisitive mind and a fierce determination all played their parts to perfection. The story is engaging, the dialogues will make you laugh out loud more than once and to top it all off, the cinematography and art direction is out of this world. I had to pause the movie mid-scene, and come online to write this review just because of one shot where the light goes out and the sky is shown to be lit up with a thousand stars......it's that breathtaking. The last time I was this charmed by a cartoon movie was back in 2001 when the first Shrek film came out. Thanks Dreamworks for making me feel the magic of animated films again.