Surprisingly enjoyable

Rating: 8/10 (20 July 2013)

To my surprise, I ended liking this movie much more than I was expecting. I have to say that I'm not exactly the biggest Dreamworks fan (While I liked the two "Kung Fu Panda" movies and I enjoyed "Rise of the Guardians", I found most of the movies produced by that animation company to be mediocre and forgettable at best.) However, this movie was actually pretty good. It had an excellent animation and imaginative designs and art (While I didn't like very the design of the human characters, I liked a lot eh visual aspect from the animal characters and the sceneries, which were quite beautiful)
What makes "The Croods" work so well are the characters, which were likable and interesting: Instead of being just bland archetypes, each one of them had their own virtues and flaws: That makes their interaction in the story to be funny and slightly more complex than in other Dreamworks movies, which rely too much in scatological humor and tired cultural references. Fortunately, "The Croods" avoids those kind of content, including instead of that some little black comedy elements which adults viewers would appreciate.
Even if "The Croods" isn't the best animated movie ever made, it is certainly much better than most of the animated films which I have seen in this year ("Monsters University" is the only exception so far) Movies likes this are a good example of how to make a neat films, appropriate for all ages, which can be enjoyed by many different kind of audiences instead of being something exclusively for kids.