With these dark, and cold nights I like nothing better to do than getting our comfy pj's on, gathering some tasty snacks and settling down on the sofa to watch a good family friendly DVD. With this in mind it was lovely to cosy up with the children to watch DreamWorks Animations The Croods. The film was a blockbuster hit at the cinema and is written and directed by Chris Sanders (Lilo & Stitch) and Kirk DeMicco (Space Chimps) and has been promoted as one of the must-see animated films of the year. We never got to see this at the cinema so there was much excitement from the children as we sat down, ready to press play!
The Croods, Ugga (mum), Grug (dad), Eep, Thunk and Sandy (children) and the mother law, Gran, are a cave family, who, when their cave is destroyed, set out to discover and explore a wonderful new landscape. This new land brings with it exciting adventures, amazing creatures and even strange surprises! Eep was a character we all fell in love with a little bit as the courageous, feisty teenager, looking for excitement and certainly reminded me of a certain someone I know ;)
We really enjoyed this pre-historic tale, which mimics many modern-day family issues, and it kept both my 7 and 12 year old entertained throughout. One of their favourite scenes was when Grug and Guy, the heroic, clever and inventive cave boy get stuck in the sticky tar, and with the help of Belt the three toed sloth, they get set free. The animated scenery, especially of the new world is stunning and definitely keeps you attracted to the colourful film.
The Croods is ultimately a story of 'change' and how to learn to adapt to new and different surroundings - we really liked the way the relationship between the (over protective) father and (wanting to be independent) daughter blossomed over time, it was really quite touching. The Croods would make a great family film to watch over Christams and is released on DVD and Blu-Ray tomorrow, 9th December, so a perfect treat just in time for Christmas. There are some great extra special features too, including 'Belts Cave Journal', 'Croods Cuts: Lost scenes' and more!
We'll definitely be getting the Christams chocolates out again for this one - the sign of a good watch, that the DVD doesn't just stay on the shelf gathering dust, but gets watched again, and again...
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Disclosure: we were sent a DVD copy of The Croods (via Mumsnet) for the purposes of this blog post. All words and opinions my own.
