Director: Kirk De Micco, Chris Sanders

Writer: Kirk De Micco, Chris Sanders, John Cleese (story by)

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Emma Stone, Ryan Reynolds, Catherine Keener, Cloris Leachman, Clark Duke, Chris Sanders, Randy Thom

Tomatometer: 68/70/84 (all critics, top critics, audience)

Spoiler-free Summary: The Croods live in a cave.  That is all they ever do.  When Pangea starts to split, they are forced to venture out of their cave and into the great unknown.  (The historical accuracy is questionable.)

Two Cents: There are two Hollywoods in the United States.  No, I’m not talking about Hollywood, Florida.  One Hollywood makes movies.  The other Hollywood makes animated movies.  How can the two sides of one industry be so different from each other?  Hollywood produces way too many movies and has pathetically low quality standards.  Animated Hollywood, on the other hand, produces a movie or two each month, rarely lowering its mesmerizingly high quality standards.

I’d be willing to bet two slices of really good pizza that you’ve seen a terrible movie in the last year.  But, when was the last time you saw a terrible animated movie?  The last one I hated was My Little Pony from 1986, and that’s only because I was once trampled by a pink horse with sparkly blue hair.  All I’m trying to say is that The Croods is nowhere near the top of the list of the best animated movies of the last five years, yet it is a darn good movie.

The moral of The Croods is that creativity breeds progress, and anything other than progress should be considered regression.  That was certainly a valuable lesson back when supermarkets only sold leftover mammoth carcass, and, in many respects, it still holds true today.  Just imagine how many of us would already be dead if Alexander Fleming had thought, “I think we’re all good on the medicine front”.

The cast of this movie is quite small, but each of its members does a bang up job.  (Not that any of the roles is particularly challenging.)  Nicolas Cage can be a bit of a dolt in live-action movies, but that works perfectly here, as he plays Grug, a primitive and cowardly caveman.  He’s actually good enough that you might not even notice it’s him, if you didn’t already know he’s in the movie.

Emma Stone is a rising star, and she doesn’t disappoint as Cage’s daughter, Eep.  Ryan Reynolds shines as Guy, a charismatic loner with loads of “ideas” (you’ll get it when you see it).  The cast is rounded out by Clark Duke, who plays Clark on The Office, Cloris Leachman, who is known to sip some ram’s piss every now and again, and Catherine Keener, from whom Jonah Hill once tried to purchase these.

Should I/Shouldn’t I: The Croods isn’t as funny as you want it to be, but it will make you laugh.  It’s not going to win next year’s Best Animated Feature Oscar, but it will get some consideration.  There’s nothing mind-blowing here, but you’ll definitely enjoy this movie more than you would most of the other muck currently in theaters.  In other words, walk, don’t run, to see The Croods; you’ll enjoy it, and you’ll get some exercise, too.

Sundae Rating: Two scoops