The Croods was a ridiculously funny yet pretty mediocre family movie that came out in 2013. With a show continuing the world of the Croods that follows the entire family and Eep, it was only expected that a second film would be released. Except, maybe not seven whole years after the first one.

When the trailer for the film first came out, the Instagram advertisements received comments that were, well, not hopeful. Most comments were on the art style and colors. The colors seemed more vibrant than the first film, but my theory is that they made the entire movie brighter because the environment that they lived in now was less bleak like the desert they used to live in. As for the animation, there’s almost a decade of difference between the 2013 animation style and the 2020 style. Although I understand the disappointment, I don’t think people realized that this film was old enough to have improved with more modern animation. I personally enjoyed the colors and animation. It was bright, fun, mystical, and the atmosphere changed with the vibe throughout the movie without drastically changing the overall color scheme. As much as people want to give slander to animated productions, I think the creators did a pretty good job.

The plot of the movie was pretty basic for a kid’s film. It wasn’t as exceptional and relatable to me as some other movies’ plots, like for example Lego Batman, which covered the fear of having people close to you. The overall motive of The Croods was pretty straightforward, and you don’t have to think much to understand what was going on. 

Sequels to movies, especially kid-friendly ones, always seem to rely on old, lukewarm jokes that just seem half-hearted and poorly timed. If we compared this film with another sequel like Despicable Me 2 (2013), we would notice that Despicable Me 2  heavily relies on the type of jokes two-year-olds would get a kick out of. The Croods, however, managed to get a few pretty good laughs from me, and there were a few times when I had to rewatch the moment to catch the joke. Granted, I laugh a lot and I’m easily mesmerized by art styles and colors, so this is only based on opinion.  My absolute favorite part of the movie was all of the new animal species that were introduced, like the Wolf Spider. It was, quite literally, a fuzzy wolf with eight legs and a tail. They were absolutely adorable and I love the play on words as well as the designs. It felt like a good combination of spider and wolf.

Overall, this movie isn’t a special one. It’s fun, it’s humorous, and if you’re a fan of The Croods, you probably should consider watching it. But, if you aren’t a huge fan of cartoons, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this movie. I give it a solid 3 out of 5, only because the plot was extremely basic. However, that doesn’t take away the charm of the film’s animation, voice acting, and character design.