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Director: Joel Crawford
Release date: November 25, 2020
Rating: ★★½
Review:
‘The Croods’ (2013) was a pleasant surprise, with for once a less slim girl as its main protagonist, trying to free herself from her over-protecting dad. The film’s main flaw was its inconsistent fantasy world – I still think an ordinary prehistoric environment would have suited the film better. Nevertheless, the success of this film certainly made one curious after a sequel, which arrived seven years later with ‘The Croods: A New Age’.
Unfortunately, this film doesn’t live up to expectations, and that’s mainly because the film makers couldn’t decide whose film this was supposed to be, making this film frustratingly unfocused. But there’s also a hidden message inside this film that is uncomfortably disturbing.
True, in ‘The Croods’ it was equally unclear whether it was Eep’s or her father Grug’s movie, because in this film it was Grug not Eep who made the greatest progression. But in ‘The Croods: A New Age’ Eep’s story gets even further deluded. In this film the Croods meet the Bettermans, acquaintances of Guy. The Bettermans, like the name implies, are more advanced people, who live in a sort of Swiss Family Robinson-like setting with a rather Willy Wonka-like farm, but who come across as leftist upper-class snobs. Daughter Dawn Betterman, who has grown in an all too lonely and protective environment, is instantly likeable, but her parents, Phil and Hope, are clearly designed to be loved to hate.
Now Dawn is set up to be Guy’s mate, but surprisingly, she and Eep never become real rivals, and there’s even a ‘Whole New World’ like sequence with Eep showing Dawn what’s out there beyond her guarding walls. One could say that this is a feminist statement, but this pales when compared to the two great European animation films from the same year, ‘Wolfwalkers’ and ‘Calamity, une enfance de Martha Jane Cannary’, whose feminism is much more prominent and daring. Compared to these films, Eep’s emancipation is trite and disappointing.
Moreover, the Bettermans’s plan with Dawn and the influence of the Bettermans on Guy are still a problem for Eep, but as said, this story arc is deluded by other story arcs. At one point it seems that Guy is the one to follow, but then we jump to the juxtaposition of Grug and Phil, and later again to one with a common enemy, all too clearly designed to team the two families together (in fact, this story element is blatantly copied from ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ from the same studio, without altering any of its premise, except for the species involved).
Within all the antics Eep’s story gets lost, while the inevitable change of the Bettermans themselves remains forced and unconvincing. Nevertheless, their change is the most problematic part of this film. The Bettermans are clearly depicted as left-wing self-complimentory, arrogant upper-class people, who have lost a sense of community, not unlike the San Fransisco people in the South Park episode ‘Smug Alert’ from 2006, or the Chalfens in Zadie Smith’s novel ‘White Teeth’ from 2000, to name two other examples of this trope.Note for example, how the Bettermans are all too unconnected individuals, each going their separate ways, while the Croods stick together and retain a “real” family relationship. In many ways one could say that ‘The Croods: A New Age’ is a film about class struggle, with a disturbing anti-elite stance, depicting left wing intelligentsia as the problem, and the ordinary commoners (the Croods, in this cage) as being on the right side of morality. This makes this film an appallingly conservative one, and even shamelessly populist. Its hidden message (in which the Bettermans must change the most, not the Croods) would do good in the present Trump era: the leftist are the ones to hate and who must change their ways…
Apart from this message, the film, like the first, suffers from unconvincing world building, with all too silly species, like literal wolf spiders. The all too fluorescent colors, too, are getting on the nerves over time. No, one must conclude that the main attraction of ‘The Croods’ remains Eep, and when she’s not present the film quickly becomes tiresome and even questionable.
Watch the trailer for ‘The Croods: A New Age’ yourself and tell me what you think:
The Croods: A New Age’ is available on Blu-Ray and DVD
Director: Robert McKimson
Release date: February 27, 1960
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
‘Wild Wild World’ is an obvious parody on the documentary series ‘Wide Wide World’, which run on NBC from 1955 to 1958. Of all cavemen cartoons ‘Wild Wild World’ is the one most directly anticipating The Flintstones, who would make their debut only seven months after the release of this cartoon.
The film is introduced and narrated by one Cave Darroway (a caricature of the original televison series’ host Dave Garroway), but the main cartoon is supposedly found footage (in “cromagnonscope”) from 75,000,000 B.C., which would explain the dinosaurs but not the cavemen. The trope of cavemen and dinosaurs existing together is almost as old as cinema itself, but ‘Wild Wild World’ goes at lengths to show the society of 75 million years ago as being just like ours, with sky scrapers, barbers, elevators and such.
The film exploits a pleasant cartoon modern design and knows a running gag of three hunters trying to catch a dinosaur, to no avail. These cavemen are drawn all too tiny compared to the dinosaurs, exaggerating the prehistoric animals’ sizes way too much.
‘Wild Wild World’ is more of a curiosity than a classic Warner Bros. cartoon, but shows that the studio could be inspired even in its nadir.
Watch excerpts from ‘Wild Wild World’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Wild Wild World’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Six’
Director: Willis O’Brien
Release Date: 1917
Rating: ★★★★
‘R.F.D. 10,000 B.C.’ is a short cartoon by stop motion pioneer Willis O’Brien (1886-1962) of later ‘King Kong‘ fame.
The cartoon tells about two rivaling cavemen, one of them a mailman, craving for the same cave woman, Winnie Warclub. At St. Valentine’s Day the mailmen exchanges Johnny Bearskin’s valentine for an insulting one, but Johnny soon finds out the truth, and knocks the mailman literally in two, winning both Winnie and the mailman’s job.
‘R.F.D. 10,000 B.C.’ precedes The Flintstones by 45 years, and shows that from the start Willis O’Brien was a capable stop motion animator. The film also shows he was interested in the prehistory right from the outset. The mailman’s cart is pulled by a sauropod, which we can clearly see breathing heavily in the end.
The puppets of the cavemen are elaborate and capable of rolling their eyes. O’Brien’s animation of the mailman is most impressive: we can clearly watch him carrying heavy mail (the sense of weight is well brought across in the animation), and his moves are genuinely sneaky. Johnny and Winnie aren’t half as good.
The film is entertaining, and shows O’Brien on par with Władysław Starewicz as the major pioneer in stop motion animation.
Watch ‘R.F.D. 10,000 B.C.’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘R.F.D. 10,000 B.C.’ is available on the Blu-Ray of ‘The Lost World’
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 