The makers of the animated Vikings comedy How to Train Your Dragon have come up with an animated caveman comedy that might as well be titled How to Train Your Father. Instead, they’ve called it The Croods, and centered it on a cavegirl named Eep (Emma Stone) who has a dad she sees — entirely accurately, let’s note — as a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal.
Voiced by Nicolas Cage, dad is loving but dim, and as you’ll guess from his bedtime stories — all of which involve characters who die when they encounter anything new — cautious to a fault.
Eep’s brother Thunk (The Office‘s Clark Duke), mom (an underused Catherine Keener), and granny (tart-tongued Cloris Leachman) have all absorbed dad’s “never not be afraid” mantra, but Eep is more adventurous. One night, she sees the light — literally, a cinder from a torch — and follows it to find a dashing, high-browed, comparatively inventive guy named Guy with the voice of Ryan Reynolds, a pet sloth and a flair for the dramatic:
“The world is ending,” he announces, as his sloth rasps a fanfare for emphasis. “Come with me.”
“I can’t,” she replies, and returns to her cave.