Rating: 13/20 (Jen: fell asleep; Emma: 6/20; Abbey: 15/20; Buster: no rating)
Plot: Thanks to global warming, the titular family of cave people have to flee their safe home and head toward a mountain with a new friend. The cave patriarch isn't happy about it because he's a conservative who doesn't even acknowledge global warming.
If you're going to make an animated movie about cavemen, just go ahead and get the rights to Captain Caveman and give that character the full-length feature film that he deserves. Nicolas Cage could have handled the raw emotion of Captain Caveman, right? Check out these character names: Grug, Eep, Guy, Ugga, Gran, Thunk, Belt. A three-year-old could have come up with those, right? The characters were the least interesting thing about this movie, and there weren't a lot of them. It seems like animated movies have been throwing as many characters as possible into these movies, probably to sell more merchandise, but maybe Dreamworks doesn't do that. Nicolas Cage's character (Grug) was the protagonist, and as much as I love Cage, I didn't really think his voice worked well here. He was a little distracting, probably because he was Nicolas Cage. The rest of characters were stock, but the lessons learned about family, fatherhood, and the willingness to change worked. It almost seemed like they came up with the themes they wanted to tackle before going to the drawing board for the characters and settings. The movie's made with the themes at the center with a lot of action and slapstick--and I mean a lot of action and slapstick--squeezed around it. Lots of movement in this makes it feel brisk at times and tedious at other times. Hardly a minute passes before you're on another wild chase or something. I did like the animation, probably some of the most beautiful and creative of any cartoon from 2013. Right as I got tired of all the browns, there was an explosion of creativity and color, vibrant foliage and unusual animals that I'm guessing never really existed. Of course, I've never been to the Creation Museum, so how would I know? This isn't an animated classic or anything, and I'm not even sure I'd want to see it again, but it's entertaining enough to watch once.
i liked this more than you. i think my score was just 1 point higher but i had nice things to say about it. of course caveman names are going to be simple. come on a sloth named belt... thats funny. i admit belt was the best thing about this movie. best nic cage movie ever.
ReplyDeleteI had a 14/20 down but remembered how bored I was by the seemingly endless barrage of action sequences. I'm surprised they got any character development at all squeezed into all that.
ReplyDeleteObviously, you've never seen Vampire's Kiss.
last sunday i was watching paris roubaix on the computer but had cbs sunday morning on the tv with the volume down. at one point in the show i was ditracted by wild movement and looked up to see a scene of nic cage in vampires kiss. it was overacting even without the volume. i can only imagine the aural assualt it would have been to my ears.
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