Grade: B

“The Croods” is a pretty solid animated film. DreamWorks seemed to put a lot of emphasis on the charming story about a prehistoric family who embarks on a life-changing adventure when meeting a modern boy with new ideas.

The cast includes voices such as Nicolas Cage, Emma Stone, Ryan Reynolds, Catherine Cleener, Clark Duke and Cloris Leechman. The cast does a great job in voicing the outlandish characters. Eep (Emma Stone) is a rebellious daughter of the old-fashioned over-protective caveman Grug (Nicolas Cage), who escapes one night to find another more evolved and enlightened caveman, Guy (Ryan Reynolds).

The rest of the family members include Eep’s dense-headed brother Thunk (Clark Duke), Ugga (Catherine Keener) as the wise woman of the family, the loose cannon Gran (Cloris Leechman), and the toddler who much resembles a dog behaviorally in the movie.

The prehistoric behaviors are quite humorous, but surprisingly, the characters reach emotional depth. Eep’s coming-of-age story is a heart-warming tale of the blossoming relationship between her and Guy. Her rough ways and Guy’s inventive, clever inventions such as “shoes” and “fire,” are so cute, even the sternest of faces couldn’t control the contours of their mouths turning upward.

Families will get a kick out of this well-plotted cartoon adventure, yet may find boredom a factor when looking at the consistently brown aesthetics of the film. However, the animations are still decent. DreamWorks animators did not limit themselves with the common prehistoric themes of dinosaurs and fur skins (although there are plenty of those in the film), they threw in a rainbow colored saber-toothed tiger and many other colorful creatures to, intentionally or unintentionally, to break up the monotony of lack luster landscapes.

All in all, it’s a lovely story of enlightenment, growth, and thoughts of pushing boundaries and abundant living.