THE CROODS

Publicity poster for The Croods (© Kirk DeMicco/Chris Sanders/DreamWorks Animation/20^th Century Fox - reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

On 27 January 2019, I watched the DVD of a great animated movie entitled The Croods (it had been shown on TV during Christmas 2018 but I forgot to watch it!).

Directed by Kirk DeMicco and Chris Sanders, produced by DreamWorks Animation, and originally released in 2013, The Croods features a somewhat dysfunctional family of cave-people, led by an overly-protective patriarch called Grug (voiced by Nicholas Cage), and reveals how he has to adapt his closeted views of the world following the arrival of a younger and much more inventive, outward-looking rival in the form of an ideas-packed youth named Guy (voiced by Ryan Reynolds – which meant that every time I heard Guy speak, I half-expected him at any moment to come out with some classic deadpan Deadpool drollery!).

Throw in some natural cataclysms and the tried-and-trusted storyline of an epic journey to safety, plus some wacky prehistory-themed slapstick along the way, as well as a blossoming romance between Guy and Grug's tomboyish, adventurous daughter Eep (Emma Stone), and you have a fun-time feelgood film that whiles away 90 minutes or so very satisfactorily.

But what I love about it far and away above all else is its totally crazy fauna and flora, which bear little if any resemblance to anything currently known from either the fossil record or the present day's zoological and botanical catalogue of living organisms. There are green sabre-tooths and a giraffe-patterned mammoth, ring-tailed lemur-like creatures but which are permanently attached to each other in pairs via a shared, conjoined tail, an actual land whale complete with fully-functional legs but also a typical aquatic-whale tail bearing a pair of horizontal flukes, voluminous flocks of scarlet piranha birds that make short work of said unfortunate land whale, huge anthropophagic flowers, and all manner of other creatures so weird as to be indescribable, so I shan't attempt to!

I was fortunate enough to find and purchase the rare 2-disc version of The Croods (for a mere £3 too), whose bonus disc has a section devoted entirely to this ancient world's bizarre (and wholly fictitious) biota, so I'll be watching that shortly with great glee.

And the icing on this primeval croodilicious cake for me is a wonderful song played over the end-credits by Owl City and Yuna (a Malaysian megastar singer) entitled 'Shine Your Way', which I like very much (until then, I knew of Owl City only via their first and biggest hit, 'Fireflies', which I've always found to be decidedly underwhelming, if truth be told). Incredibly, however, 'Shine Your Way' never made the charts either in the UK or anywhere else as far as I can tell (perhaps it was not released as a single?), but there is an excellent official music video here on YouTube that incorporates some spectacular excerpts from the movie alongside Owl City and Yuna performing this song.

Also well worth checking out on YouTube here, here, and here is this truly hilarious trio of official trailers for The Croods itself. Moreover, there is a Croods TV series, Dawn of the Croods, which debuted on Netflix in December 2015. However, it does not feature any of the voice cast from the original movie – speaking of which, after a few false starts a sequel is currently under development at DreamWorks Animation. So if you're a Croods fan, there is plenty more where The Croods came from!

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Personae dramatis for The Croods (© Kirk DeMicco/Chris Sanders/DreamWorks Animation/20^th Century Fox - reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)