Theater Review: The Croods

This was honestly a bit of a surprise. I had absolutely no interest in checking out this film, but my parents visited and decided to take my son (and us) to the movie.

The Croods is about a a family of cavemen led by their father Grug (Nicolas Cage). The cavemen have slowly started to become extinct, thanks to disease, carnivorous beasts, and others.

Grug is very overprotective of his family, which they believe is the reason they have survived while others have died. Eep (Emma Stone), Grug's daughter, is not so excited about having to stay in hiding inside their cave all of the time. So, she begins to push the limits.

Ugga (Catherine Keener) - Grug's wife, Gran (Cloris Leachman) - Ugga's mother, Thunk (Clark Duke) - Grug's son, and Sanday - Grug's other daughter, all follow everything that Grug's says. They love their cave and have no plans to ever go out and explore the world.

Eep, however, sees a glow outside the cave during the night and curiosity gets the best of her. She sneaks out of the cave and follows it - which actually turns out to be fire, something she has never seen before. The creator of the fire, though, is Guy (Ryan Reynolds), another caveman who has been out on his own and has adapted to the harsh world.

After an earthquake crushes their cave and opens up a hidden world to the cavemen, the Croods are forced to try and find a new place to hide - and use Guy as their guide. Along the way, the rest of the family begins to feel that Grug's way of life may not be the best.

I have to admit, even after seeing the trailer a handful of times this movie never really excited me. But, I guess you can't judge a movie by its trailer - because the film as actually pretty decent. Not amazing, but definitely worth seeing.

The scenery in the film was outstanding, with at first mostly brown and boring colors - but blossoming into a rainbow world.

The family itself was also pretty fun. But the funniest character had to be Guy's pet sloth, Belt - who had some great scenes, despite not uttering any real words.

Grade:

3/50x2: Being John Malkovich

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live in someone else's body?

Well, what about if that body was that of actor extraordinaire John Malkovich?

Being John Malkovich gives you the opportunity to do just that. Craig Schwartz (John Cusack) is a puppeteer, who does small jobs here and there, but wants to make puppeteering huge.

He is married to Lotte Schwartz (Cameron Diaz), who is completely obsessed with animals - and has a ton of them throughout their apartment. Lotte wants to have a child, but Craig doesn't feel they are ready financially yet. He does agree, however, to get a job and he lands one at a weird office at LesterCorp on the 7 1/2 floor. He becomes a file clerk under new boss, Dr. Lester (Orson Bean).

While there he runs into Maxine (Catherine Keener) and becomes very attractive to him - despite her non-attraction to her, he stays very persistent.

Schwartz the makes a pretty iconic discovery - a small door that when entered allows you to get inside the body of actor John Malkovich for 15 minutes. Then it spits you out on the side of the NJ Turnpike.

Schwartz brings this to the attention of Maxine in hopes to gain her attention, and it sort of does, but more in the form that the two of them begin charging money for people to spend time inside John Malkovich.

This was a very strange, yet entertaining film. I like when films go out on a limb a little bit and don't completely fall on their face.

The acting was done very well, but the most entertaining was John Malkovich practically playing himself - yet even more over the top, if that is possible.

Grade:

49/50: Where the Wild Things Are

Wow, I am so torn on this one.

I am a huge fan of the source material - which isn't much - and the film itself looked amazing, but there was just something missing.

When I was younger Where the Wild Things Are was one of my, if not my, favorite book. And now that I have my own child, I was so excited to start reading it to him as well.

So, when the movie was announced I was so excited. But, how would they turn a 10-sentence book, beloved by children into a full-length feature film?

Well, again I am torn.

I sort of liked it, but then again I didn't. I felt bored throughout most of the film, which to me is a huge negative. I am pretty lenient on many films because there is usually something that can hold my attention - but I just didn't have that here.

First, the positives. The 'Wild Things' looked amazing. And they didn't look fake at all - I was so pleasantly surprised. (Its great to see how far we have come, just finished TMNT the movie and the lips were so off when talking, but not in this film).

The second was the voice talent - most notably James Gandolfini as Carol (his voice to me was almost sounding like Bruce Willis, I kept thinking it was him).

Finally, the expanded story needed names, voices, backgrounds, personalities and even genders for the 'Wild Things' something that the filmmakers and writers did somewhat well. And you know what? The actual story/meaning of the film was great - but getting there was just so boring to me.

The bad was the story line on the actual island. A lot supposed to be going on, but just didn't work for me.

Two decent actors were way underused - Catherine Keener, who played the mother, and Mark Ruffalo, as her boyfriend. Ruffalo had like half a line the entire film, way underused. Why even get him?

And to me, as a fan of the book, Max (Max Records) seemed a bit too old for me. As those who have read the book know, the story goes that Max is a bit too rambunctious one night and is sent to bed without dinner. His imagination brings him to this island and he becomes the king of the 'Wild Things'. It's here that he starts to realize just how difficult it is to put up with characters that are well - just like him. And he returns home to his bedroom - his food was on his table, still hot.

Here, Max actually leaves the house - and goes missing. So, I am sort of lost on where exactly he was the entire time.

I give this a little higher grade than I probably should because the movie itself looked amazing - and the overall meaning of the film was great. Getting there was just way too yawnish.

Grade: