Dir: Joel Crawford (U, 90 mins)
A belated sequel to the entertaining if hardly groundbreaking 2013 original, this has the prehistoric family The Croods encountering another equally tight clan with a very different agenda to them with amusing, zippy results. Caveman Grug (an irrepressible Nicolas Cage) and family – wife Ugga (Catherine Keener), kids Eep and Thunk (Emma Stone and Clark Duke) and Granny (Cloris Leachman), together with quip meister general Ryan Reynolds as Eep’s bae Guy – all return, but their family dynamic is about to be thrown out of whack by The Bettermans.
A more evolved family, not as prone to creating kill circles and battling mammal monsters, the Bettermans are hipsters – and provide much of the comedy. Peter Dinklage voices Phil Betterman, who insists on things like privacy and hygiene; together with wife Hope (Leslie Mann), they have created a cocoon around daughter Dawn (Kelly Marie Tran). She doesn’t get to go outside the paradise they have created with their own television, also known as a window, but when they meet the Croods, events get complicated and messy.
There’s a fantastic monkey-based subplot, leading to a cult that must be given bananas or else, that has plenty of slapstick and provides the threat to the bond that is slowly developing between the families. Humour propels the story over the potentially twee everyone-has-a-right-to-be-themselves message, as Eep is seduced by the refinements of the Bettermans lifestyle and Dawn is equally impressed by the Croods’ more primitively loving family, who sleep in a pile rather than in separate rooms.
It’s all well handled by director Crawford and is packed with visual gaggery, a slapping form of monkey language proving a highlight. Frothy, light and fun for those upcoming rainy summer holiday days.
In cinemas from Fri 16 July
words KEIRON SELF