The Croods: A New Age parents guide

The Croods: A New Age Parent Guide

This is watchable enough for adults to enjoy and amusing enough for kids to have a lot of fun.

Overall A-

Digital on Demand: The Croods have found some new neighbors, a family called the Bettermans, who claim to be more highly evolved than the Croods. And you thought your neighbors were snooty.

Release date December 18, 2020

Violence B
Sexual Content A
Profanity A-
Substance Use A

Why is The Croods: A New Age rated PG? The MPAA rated The Croods: A New Age PG for peril, action and rude humor.

Run Time: 95 minutes

Parent Movie Review

The Crood family once again find themselves travelling the world in search of a new home. Eventually they come across a walled-in paradise, full of food, water, and no predators. There they meet the Betterman family: Hope (Leslie Mann), Phil (Peter Dinklage), and Dawn (Kelly Marie Tran). Seemingly more evolved, the Bettermans look down on the Croods, and plot to keep Guy (Ryan Reynolds) with them while sending the rest of the Croods back into the wild.

I am not familiar with the first Croods film, so I’m basing my evaluation of this sequel on its own merits. And I’ll start with saying that it’s fine. This is not a groundbreaking, revolutionary entry into the animation canon, but it’s also not bad. I was mildly entertained throughout, laughed a few times, and only rolled my eyes once. Compared to the unwatchable garbage I usually get subjected to, that’s high praise.

I have further tributes for the voice work, which is phenomenal across the board. This is an all-star cast, and they are not phoning it in. Peter Dinklage particularly shines in his role as Phil, the arrogant and pompous patriarch of the Bettermans. The story has some heartfelt moments, and some sweet messages about overcoming prejudices, learning humility, and working together. I very much appreciated that the writers resisted the urge to pit Dawn and Eep (Emma Stone) against each other to fight over Guy, and instead had them become friends almost immediately. The writing is also decently funny, not just for young kids, but for adults as well. It does slide into potty humor occasionally, but not so much that it becomes unbearable for those with more maturity than the eight year olds this movie is aimed at.

As far as a family movie night suggestion goes, this is not a bad choice. It’s watchable enough for adults to mildly enjoy themselves and amusing enough that most children will have a lot of fun. It does lean into some scary territory a few times, and involves a lot of slap stick violence, so I’m not sure I would recommend it for the preschool crowd, but you can use your own discretion based on your child’s level of sensitivity. Overall, I’m a firm believer that children today need more Nicolas Cage in their lives, and you could certainly do a lot worse.

Directed by Joel Crawford. Starring Ryan Reynolds, Nicolas Cage, and Emma Stone. Running time: 95 minutes. Theatrical release December 18, 2020. Updated

Watch the trailer for The Croods: A New Age

The Croods: A New Age
Rating & Content Info

Why is The Croods: A New Age rated PG? The Croods: A New Age is rated PG by the MPAA for peril, action and rude humor.

Violence: Slap-stick style violence throughout. Punching, kicking, biting, and throwing things happen with no lasting injuries. A girl is stung in the hand by a bee and it swells up significantly. A character throws a stick, and it gets stuck in an animal’s eye. A creature is struck by lightning. Characters are electrocuted by an eel. Some characters are offered up as a “sacrifice” to a giant baboon monster.
Sexual Content: The plot revolves around two teens who are in love, so there is a fair amount of hand holding, cuddling, and a few kisses.
Profanity: Insults such as “idiot”, “stupid”, and “bonehead”.
Alcohol / Drug Use: None.

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The Croods: A New Age Parents' Guide

Why are the Bettermans unwilling to share their home with the Croods at first? What do the two families learn as they spend time together? Do we sometimes judge people based on where they come from or how they live? How can we be more open to people who are different from us?

Home Video

The most recent home video release of The Croods: A New Age movie is February 23, 2021. Here are some details…

Related home video titles:

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The stop motion wizards at Aardman cast an eye on the prehistoric period in Early Man. In this tale a soccer game is used to settle an argument between two tribes of varying levels of social evolution.

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There are plenty of films that encourage kids to value diversity. In The Addams Family, the ghoulish clan move to a new town, horrifying the mainstream members of the community. Both sides learn the value of respecting and accepting differences. Hotel Transylvania features an overprotective vampire who repeatedly warns his daughter about humans – and then a young man shows up at their hotel. In The Kid Who Would Be King, a young man retrieves King Arthur’s sword and must then work with hostile fellow students to save the world from a malevolent sorceress.