The Croods

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Tyler, Michael

Such expensive looking animation. Absolutely gorgeous design jobs for characters, a huge number of creatures and an even larger number of expansive settings. Doing a road trip movie like this as an animation much have given the poor scene planners a heart attack but visually it's pretty stunning. Doubly so in 3D.

Whoever was in charge of special effects was working overtime too. Some crazy technical challenges on this show.

The character animation is just left of completely cartoonish. There's a bit of Warner Bros style beatings and falling from great heights but mixed in with some nice realistic moments, which is odd. But they keep the story moving and the comedy usually works well. Thankfully there's nothing to pop-cultury or annoyingly meta, the film stands well on its own merits.

It's not as satisfying as my Dreamworks gold standard, How to Train Your Dragon, and doesn't quite have the heart of Kung Fu Panda either but even with the huge technical advancements aside, it's still one of their better outputs. Very enjoyable.