The Caveman Animated Comedy The Croods is a Typical Animated Crowd Pleaser with an Atypically Rich Lead Performance by Nicolas Cage
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When actors reach a certain age they tend to either play moms and dads or people whose lives are defined on some level by the choice not to have children in a society where we are all expected to reproduce.
For Nicolas Cage hitting middle age meant playing a LOT of dad roles. That’s unsurprisingly something the real-life father is very good at.
The 2013 Dreamworks cartoon The Croods is of interest to me primarily for how snugly it fits into the devoted dad stage of Cage’s mid-period career. Though they are very different movies with very different audiences, 2010’s Kick Ass and The Croods both cannily cast Cage as an obsessive dad convinced, not without reason, that the world is a terrifying and dangerous place and that if he does not devote his life to preparing their progeny to fighting that darkness then they will be destroyed by the universe’s ugliness.
Of course in Kick-Ass, Cage’s Big Daddy puts his pre-teen daughter into extreme danger on a constant basis by transforming her into assassin Hit-Girl. In The Croods, Cage’s caveman Grug, whose name might as well be Big Daddy, as he is a big-ass dude whose life is defined by neurotic fatherhood, is surrounded by dangers he played no role in creating.
The Croods introduces Grug as a prehistoric worrywart with a dad/Shrek bod who has protected his family from premature death but at a terrible cost. Grugg believes, with damn good reason, that the world that he inhabits is a terrible and treacherous realm where death waits around every corner, generally in the form of some manner of dinosaur with razor-sharp and claws.
So he has taught rebellious, strong-willed daughter Eep (Emma Stone), feral super-baby Sandy (Randy Thorn) and dopey son Thunk (Clark Duke) to live in a state of perpetual fear.
“Fear keeps us alive. Never not be afraid” Grug counsels his family. He’s a caveman in the purest sense, a homebody who wants to stay inside a cave that’s safe and warm and unknowable and away from an outside world where he cannot protect them.
Grugg begins the film in a place of total terror and all-consuming fear. Fear defines him as much as being a father does. Indeed, his whole parenting style is fundamentally fear-based. His love language is infecting the people he loves with his all-consuming anxiety and fear.
That, dear reader, renders him one of the most relatable protagonists in the history of entertainment. I live in a state of eternal fear. Like Grugg, I am afraid of pretty much everything. That fear has protected me at the cost of living a fuller and less fearful existence.
The Croods may be a silly caveman cartoon for children but it’s grounded in Grugg’s very real need to protect his family at any cost.
Grugg’s orderly, rigid life of ritual and routine is shaken up by the presence of hunky teen inventor Guy (Ryan Reynolds). Guy is Grugg’s antithesis. Where Grugg is all about surviving the present day, Guy prefers to look optimistically towards the future, to the endless promise of tomorrow. Grugg gravitates towards darkness while Guy is irrevocably attracted to life.
Guy is, in other words, the Ryan Reynolds character, a smart-mouthed wise-ass who exists at once inside and outside of the action. In keeping with Reynolds’ persona, Guy is alternately amusing and endearing and moderately tiresome and exhausting.
The personification of progress has a similarly amusing and exhausting sidekick in a sloth named Belt. The adorable animal who helps keep Guy’s pants up when not engaging in monkeyshines and tomfoolery angrily demands the audience’s love. He’s a pre-fabricated fan favorite who couldn’t be more pandering or obvious in his kiddie appeal. Despite, or perhaps because, of the calculating nature of his construction Belt is an enormously winning character all the same.
Guy and Grugg lead the family in two decidedly different directions. Eep understandably finds herself drawn to the hunky genius with the optimistic bent. Grugg is less impressed with the young usurper though there is a very funny set-piece where a jealous Grugg decides to remake himself immediately in Guy’s problem-solving, progressive image and ends up seemingly inventing the beatnik in the process.
Guy recedes in a third act that hits all the expected beats by having Grugg undergo the inevitable satisfying character arc taking him from fear, suspicion and dread to openness, optimism and belief.
The Croods is short on surprises but long on unexpected depth and substance. For the podcast Clint and myself are about to tape we will be covering The Frozen Ground, a heavy drama about a real life serial killer and the lawman who helped bring him to justice and The Croods, a silly cartoon about cavemen.
Cage delivers a far more satisfying dramatic performance in The Croods, an animated comedy where he merely voices a caveman named Grugg, than he does in The Frozen Ground, a docudrama.
The Academy Award winner delivers a real performance that allows us to feel Grugg’s pain and anxiety as well as his sense of elation and accomplishment when he lets go of fear and embraces hope.
The Croods is one of Cage’s top grossing films. I’m not sure it’d make my list of Cage’s top 50 films but it might make a list of Cage’s 50 best performances. Cage has as much charisma as any actor alive but his performance here is much more than a star turn. Cage really gets inside the emotions at the film’s core, particularly fear and love, in a way that makes The Croods as satisfying dramatically as it is comedically.
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