leftism | Dr. Grob's Animation Review

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: