REVIEW:“The Croods” plays to annoying stereotypes

It seems you have seen them all in caveman movies — big, burly people clad simply in fur and grunting simple languages.  The case is true in “The Croods,” but not entirely.

Starting with the story, it is another “new world discovery” cliché. Dad leads the family and is grounded within tradition. He has trouble tending to a rebellious daughter — that part screams Pixar’s “Brave” — and he eventually sees the light –— he has to change or else.

The humor is partially rife with pop culture references, and normally, they ruin the movie’s scope. But, considering the movie’s blandly predictable plot, the pop culture references are actually funny, to an extent.

The characters are hit and miss. Another cliché the move emphasizes is the rebellious daughter who defies tradition. In this case, it is the physically revealing Eep, voiced by Emma Stone. She, like the other cavemen in the movie, has a stereotypically ridiculous name. Nicolas Cage voices the stubborn traditionalist father Grug, Catherine Keener is the mother Ugga, Clark Duke is the not-so-funny son Thunk and Cloris Leachman is Gran. Gran might be yet another stereotype — that of the spunky mother-in-law — but she carries the bulk of the movie’s humor, and she always makes me laugh.  Leachman and Ryan Reynolds as Eep’s intellectual love interest Guy are the movie’s show-stealers, and this feature surprises me.

With all this being said, does the movie provide anything good and worth watching? Actually, the animation is amazing. The creativity of the scenery and animal hybrids — like the croc-dog, turtle-bird, coral reef on dry land — make the animation more amazing and more gorgeous than Oz had provided in the recent prequel. However, while it is amazing, good animation alone does not make a movie worthy of a good review.

With a been-there-done-that story and clichéd characters overshadowed by gorgeous, imaginative animation, “The Croods” may not be a good family film, but at least it is no yabba-dabba-ptooey.

I give it three and a half stars out of five.