Review - Olympus Has Fallen

After following the Malaysian General Election over the weekend I suddenly gained an appetite to watch an action flick about overthrowing governments, so this flick came to my attention. I originally had no intentions to watch it as I felt it was going to be another re-iteration of Die Hard or even similarly themed films such as Harrison Ford's Air Force One. But the original film I planned to see is not showing after work hours, I guess this will do for now while I wait for Star Trek to come out next Tuesday.

Olympus Has Fallen teaches me that Americans are proud to be Americans, and that the world would crumble if America falls. And if you forget this fact after Aaron Eckhart utters "don't negotiate" prior to capture, don't worry. They will remind you again and again and again between the action sets.

The story didn't surprise or thrill me due to its faithful following of the Die Hard formula (some bad guys take over a building to negotiate for something, using hostages as the bargaining chip, while a lone rogue picks off the bad guys one by one more effectively than the useless police/military/government sitting helplessly in the sidelines). Everything I thought would happen did happen, though compared to many of its predecessors, it takes a lot more liberties in the story's scenario, and seemed unashamed, without subtlety, of how it is just a weak effort to cash in on recent American interest in Korea. Removing the context reduces this film to be a 2 hour reminder that Americans should be very proud to be Americans, and if you are not American you should become American!

As an action film I cannot condemn nor condone it; there are nice fight scenes but nothing innovative or memorable. The fights are quite clear and easy to follow, but I have my reservations about whether the White House, or more accurately Washington D.C. is really susceptible to such an attack after 9/11. It's codenamed Olympus for a reason.

Gerard Butler portrays a convincing former Secret Service Mike Banning who is haunted by his failure to save the President's wife in the past and has burdened himself with the responsibility to save the President from the terrorists. Together with Kang, the main terrorist played by Die Another Day survivor Rick Yune, they are the most bearable part of the film to me because their chemistry and equally strong-willed personalities and motivations is all the real character interaction we get; everyone else in the film is just there to fulfill a cinematic function or character stereotype, and poorly at that.

To the casual movie going audience, I recommend if you just want to watch action and don't care about story and characters as me, you are still better off watching Iron Man 3, or the upcoming Star Trek film. To those who enjoy picking apart films like me, this one is gold, but don't expect to feel satisfied watching this film, unless you are proud to be American and need a 2 hour quasi-propaganda to remind yourself of it!

Overall Rating: 5 out of 10



Spoilers ahead...

Negotiating the plot.

One of the elements of this film that bugged me the most is its insistence that the United State of America does not negotiate with terrorists. And yet at every step of the story we see how not only the presidential/military staff at The Pentagon slowly give in to the terrorist demands, but even the president gives in not once, not twice, but 4 times to terrorist demands so that he doesn't have to be directly responsible for the deaths of his fellow hostages. The only person who personifies and stays true to this American principle is  the rogue who I guess at this point embodies the real America since he never gave in or gave up.

The end of the film shows the president embracing how American he is by saying that America has won again because they stayed true to who they are and stayed united even under despair, but really it was the underdog who did everything, and so really it is stolen glory and they neither earned nor deserved the proclamation of American supremacy.

I call this quasi-propaganda for this very reason. If the characters playing the White House administration truly wanted to portray America's "we are not afraid of terroists" then none of the hostages should have given up their bits of code to Cerebrus (we'll get to that), and the terrorist's real plan would have failed. They should have welcomed death as an honorable alternative to surrendering their keys to allow the enemy to open pandora's box. And as a side note, they should know they're dead no matter what; that's how skilled terrorists always work. People should know this fact if they studied a Bachelor degree in casual movie watching.

So a true "no negotiations" policy would have made the story much shorter, but the message would be much stronger and effective. Sure the president and vice president would probably have died before Butler could  finish all the levels to get to the big boss, but by not giving in they showed that you cannot terrorise America. You kill the president the Vice president will take over after SWAT eventually wipes you out. And even if you kill the Vice president too (which they did) there's the speaker of the house. The people will just elect another president after this blows over. And because the film took a more middle-of-the-road approach to show the humanity of Americans it actually illustrates how the "no negotiation" policy doesn't work in practice because it dehumanizes the leaders if they make immoral decisions on principle. But still, proud to be American!


The Butler vs The Kang

Gerard Butler's performance as the rogue is convincing and enjoyable, possibly due to my positive experience of his efforts in Law Abiding Citizen, and that he didn't sing in this film. His relationship with the president's family was established hastily, but not really explored after the first 5 minutes. You can only really see the relationship through Butler's disillusionment post-accident, and his determination to get to the bunker post-occupation.

Kang is also a rogue, except his motivations are even more deeply rooted in national grief, hoping for the reunification of North and South, while blaming Americans for interfering with the process. He is no different from any other hatred-driven, single-minded terrorists in hostage-rescue stories since the 1980s. However I am grateful they did find an ethnically Korean actor to portray the character at least.

Their banters are engaging, they have equally fierce spirits and know how to push each others' buttons, because they actually have similar personalities albeit different objectives. Sadly their fight scene at the end was far too short and honestly, I felt like they deserved a proper climax and some famous last words. But all we get is Butler keeping his promise to stab Kang in the brain with a knife.

All this positive about the film is easily offset by horribly written side villains, in the form of ex-secret service traitor Dave Forbes. While his acquaintance and colleaguehood with Banning is established prior to the terrorist occupation and him turning sides, his motivations and how he got engulfed in this conspiracy is really murky. From what the film has shown me he is the only insider who helped orchestrate and organise the stolen USAF warplane, the next-generation Hydra weapon (which by the way is not even close to this-generation weaponry) AND somehow managed to ensure he would be allowed to be part of a heads-of-state meeting despite no longer being in the secret service or having any ambassador/auditing responsibilities with the South Korean government.

This character's presence and role in the film is not merely a nitpick (don't worry will be quite a few), because he is perhaps the trump card of Kang, and so you would think he should have been the real villain and the one Butler has the most personal fight with. But no he gets taken out by Butler in 30 seconds, apologises for his actions, and dies after a redemptive act to help Banning, which totally and unforgiveably contradicts his deep hatred of the American way not 20 minutes earlier in the film. I guess he just couldn't resist the Butler charm.

Where is the love?

Another weak point of this film is Banning's love interest. After the opening scene we fast forward 18 months to see Banning has a neglected-but-still-important girlfriend/fiance/wife? She doesn't contribute anything significant to the story, and yet we get 5 scenes fousing on her. One where we establish she lives with Banning and is romantically attached to him, three where we see her at work as a doctor in the ER, presumably in a hospital close enough to be the emergency centre for the White House casualties. And the last one as she rode out with the ambulance to receive the wounded president, where she stares into Banning's war-torn body but with a facial expression of redemption, restoration, but says and does nothing. What was the point? Was there a message or is it symbolic of something? Not clear!

None of these scenes show how she helps Banning do anything. She doesn't even fulfill an emotional function because Banning sees her more as an obligation, a distraction, a personification of normality which he can't embrace. She doesn't get kidnapped, shot, killed or even know about Banning's journey into the terrorists' lair, so we don't see her crying or worried for her man in the cinematic cliche sense. You could write out her character and the story would be equally good (or bad). At least the president's wife had the excuse of needing to die to cause the distancing between the president and Banning. The use of the "Noooooo!" cliche when she died kind of killed the mood for me as well...moving on!

The relationship between Banning and the son is okay, and I characterized this relationship as love because we are supposed to see Banning as a godfather to the president's son (Connor is his name I believe). I mean they do pull Chekov's gun pretty early in the film with Banning testing the kid's intricate knowledge of the White House's secret passages and hiding spots. Guess this kid is also proud to be an American living in the most American building in America.


And the useless, hopeless military that America is proud to step on

Another glaring problem with this film, as with many Hollywood produced action films is its irreverence for their own soldiers and generals and military scientists. These are the people who protect you from the terrorists, keep enemy nations at bay and assist you when natural disasters strike, and you repay them by portraying how ineffective, stupid and stubborn they are? The concept and design of Cerebrus (the self-destruct mechanism for America's nukes) is also extremely stupid but I'll get to that in the nitpick section.

I'll admit I don't read that much into America's military history, but as far as I know most of the international wars that included America, they were on the winning side right? What twisted enjoyment does the director/writer think the audience gets from seeing its own security walls crumble? To see their weapons used against themselves? Suddenly they're not proud to be Americans! The very thing that helped Americans win America from the British was war, and after a few centuries you'd think they are pretty good at their job, but movie logic trumps reality any day!

A final note about how American this film is: the music at the beginning of the movie; well it's totally a knock off of the anthemic opening to Air Force One, another very American film with a pro-American message aimed at making Americans proud to be in America! I personally think America is more than what these films portray it to be, just as most real Americans know Australia is more than Skippy the Kangaroo and Waltzing Matilda. So I hope Hollywood would stop making these kinds of stereotyping, unoriginal and over-patriotic films, and that I should avoid them myself.


Finally, the Nitpicks

• As part of the terrorist occupation of the White House, they managed to get their hands on a US Air Force plane to attack the White House and the nearby civilians from the air. It is intercepted by two fighter jets which are taken down pretty quickly but this all taking place right over the Capitol Building. Would the plane, given the know it's an unauthorized flight into a restricted airspace, really have allowed this plane to get so close to the White House before discovering it and threatening to shoot it down? Also given its location and trajectory, wouldn't shooting it down cause massive damage to the White House area and countless civilian casualties?
  
• While the compromised USAF plane is shooting at the ground, we are shown some of the guards on the ground have guns which they are firing back at the plane. Did they seriously think they could shoot it down? Guess when you're in a state of panic you'll do anything if you think it'll increase your chances.
  
• How did Forbes (the inside traitor) get access to so many things for the terrorists like the USAF plane, the Hydra weapon and (I presume) the garbage trucks with machine guns? Sure he was ex-secret service, but that's a very different government department to the Air Force, Defence Science and Waste Management. There must be another insider traitor!
  
• How Cerebrus can be activated is stupid. The point of giving multiple people bits of a password is so that access is only granted in the presence of all three individuals. But giving it to both the President and Vice President is dumb because the purpose of Vice Presidency is to be the acting President if something happens to the President. Cerebrus seems to be useful for one of those "if something happens to the President" and they can't both be essential personnel to the unlocking of the tool.
  
• How Cerebrus works is stupid 1. So in the film they say that Cerebrus is an isolated system which is why they can't turn it off from NORAD or Pentagon. But they can monitor how many of the codes have been entered and whether it is activated/deactivated as well as the missiles it has queued for self-destruction? So then how can it be called isolated if everyone can see the status? Also if it's so 'isolated' why is the deactivation code in the Pentagon? Shouldn't those three code-holders be the ones holding the means of deactivation? Yeah. Very isolated system indeed.
  
• How Cerebrus works is stupid 2. Cerebrus as the film states is intended to disarm any launched nuclear weaons by means of self-destruct, to prevent it from reaching its intended target. Firstly, most nuclear warheads in existence today already have a safe way to self-disable in case of misfire or change of plans mid-launch. Some do explode but not in a way that would excite the nuclear warhead and cause the holocaustic chain reaction. Secondly, even if you couldn't self-destruct the missiles without causing the nuclear component to explode, blowing them up in mid air is probably more harmful than to let them hit their target, as nuclear explosion higher in the atmosphere causes Electromagnetic Pulses, which cover a far greater radius and shuts down all electronics including pacemakers. Read the article on XKCD for more information.
  
• When the terrorists demanded Pentagon to pull out US troops from Korea, did they really have to comply? Why don't they just fabricate the news and 'tell' them they've done so? Also how did the media get wind of it so quickly? Was there a journalist sitting in the situation command center with the generals and surviving white house administration?
  
• How did Kang manage to get the last Cerebrus code when the president clearly showed his commitment he will not give his third? If it can be brute-force cracked (i.e. trial and error) then some computer programmer really needs to be dismissed over such a poor design. On that note, wouldn't it be an awfully risky to require the code-holders to remember their codes? What if one of them forgets? How will the reset their bit of the password? See what I meant earlier by taking liberties with the story's scenario?
  
• Countdown clock cliche which gives Bannings ample time to take out Kang and his last few henchmen, ensure the president is stable, and work on typing in the deactivation code. Because we might still want our missiles to hit our target in the end, so we must install an abort button for an abort button. Classic.
  

On a side note, someone actually brought their baby to watch this MA rated film in the session I went to. And no surprise, the baby started crying once the gruesome, unrelenting fighting started. Parenting lesson needed.

Review - Iron Man 3

For those who haven't seen the film yet...the no-spoilers review

For a third film in a franchise, Iron Man 3 is above average in many aspects. For a comic book movie, it is effective in blurring the line between fantasy and reality. But it's crowning achievement is perhaps the number of times it surprises and engages the audience with its ingenious twists and turns in both the story and character developments. I have to say I did not expect a lot of what I got, and it was delivered in a such really smart and admirable way a few times I saw myself taking off my imaginary hat to the film. Film three may not have the same level of wit as the first, but it is on par when it comes to entertaining the audience, perhaps even more successful in terms of balancing thematic depth and popcorn humor.

I have intimately followed the Marvel movies, and have felt a sense of gratitude to the studio for taking their characters so seriously; making them not only epic, but very watchable to your non-geeks. They are films you can have discussions about afterwards, which is part of the cinema-going experience for me. This film in particular is also very re-watchable, because it is an eye-candy with nutrition for our intelligence. It's been a while since I've seen an audience so engaged with a film, I daresay even more than The Avengers for the session I watch, so I'm very glad I watched it while it was fresh in the theaters and not after the hype is over.

Tony Stark is his usual lovable swift who takes the titular superhero to the next level by questioning the whole concept of who actually is Iron Man. I really appreciate that they explore this element of his character not through words, but through mostly visuals while still jabbing out witty remarks here and there. The centrality of the issue on Starks' ability to protect his 'family' does come with the assumption you know what happened in The Avengers, so I would say the film makes more sense to the franchise chasers than the casual viewer who probably already forgot what happened in the preceding film. But seeing how much money they've already earned before it's even opened in US, I doubt it's a major problem.

Unfortunately, no film is without flaws. For me the biggest downside in this film is that the backstory of some of the new characters are clumsy and do not justify their actions in the story properly. And while it isn't distracting, it does come across artificial and exaggerated in a few places, particularly for the climax and resolution of the film. Pepper Potts' role in the film expands in a pleasing but still limited way, very much still the love interest Tony Stark has to protect and save, but occasionally she gets to hold a machine gun which she doesn't know how to nor want to fire; she is a weaponised damsel in distress if you will.

But overall, it was a lot of fun and there were many funny scenes and dialogue throughout the film. The action scenes in are very inventive though a bit overt at the end, but that's what most fans were hoping for I'm guessing. Perhaps if they didn't knit the funny and deeper scenes so closely, it would leave more space for the viewer to ingest each scenes rather than feel like they're in a high speed roller coaster ride of emotions.

And for those who know the quirk of Marvel movies, yes, there IS a post-credits scene but you'll have to wait even longer than previous Marvel movies to get to it (since it's after ALL the credits, and not just the main ones).

Overall Rating: 8/10


Spoilers ahead!


Booby Bunny and Surprises

This film fascinates me from a character development perspective. The director or writer seems to hold back from developing Tony Stark in a 100% serious manner, like how Christopher Nolan went all out with the Batman franchise. The story and setting allowed for so much potential growth of Iron Man as a superhero but short of becoming an immortal symbol of good. Instead we end on a revelation, an epiphany that consummates in an uncertain future, which is fine and all but does deprive the film from achieving a 'great' status.

The giant bunny with boobs is perhaps a strong indicator of this reservation because a changed Stark wouldn't be selling his girlfriend such a cheap laugh, especially after events in The Avengers. Perhaps it's all his way of hiding insecurities, but the tone and setting of each scene doesn't allow for us the audience to fully appreciate his actions.

In terms of the scene where Stark threatens on public television to take on The Mandarin, there you can see that he is trying to hide his fears with being irresponsibly daring, and we do see the consequences he and Pepper had to bear with those words. However his quick and sincere apology to Pepper does show that he's not the same old self-absorbed egotistic man, but that he is still-in-progress changing to be the Iron Man and Tony Stark people need him to be, and making mistakes along the way while working out who and what he should be.


The Mandarin

How they incorporated the mandarin into the film is brilliant and effective, although some fans of the comic book may be annoyed or even feel betrayed that the supernatural aspects of the mandarin was discarded to keep the film more 'earthly'. In the fan's defense, The Avengers pretty much tossed reality aside for a cosmic story so I would've been happy if The Mandarin was real and not just a figurehead.

The character of The Mandarin/Trevor in this film is perhaps the second best thing behind Tony Stark, because he demonstrates that terror is a symbol and not a person. When the person that represents unstoppable threat exists as an idea over an individual, you gain a higher level of respect and fear for that terror. How the American government as portrayed in this film deals with the Mandarin is perhaps how the real government would react to such an unstoppable force. Yet on the flip side, Trevor is just hilarious. That's all I can say really. His postures, his demeanor and dialogue is practically another Jack Sparrow. It's a pity we only get like 6 minutes of him to make way for the fairly boring Killian.


And...nitpicks!

1. The backstory of Aldrich Killian as well as Maya Hansen is very weak and clumsy. How Killian was formerly interested in Pepper Potts, and Maya's 30 second redemption was all a bit contrived to be fair. Maybe they all studied in the same uni together.

2. The 'fake' mandarin Trevor, in one of his terrorist videos, shoots some CEO of an oil company after the President tries to call him to negotiate. We establish later that Trevor is actualy oblivious to how real his 'stage performances' are outside his mansion. So how does he not realise that the guy he just shot was really shot? Did he not see the blood coming out of the guy's head? Did he not notice that after 'cut' the guy had to be dragged off? Awkward isn't it when you think about it.

2.5 On the same note, we see that Trevor actually has TV, so wouldn't the news be all about him during these attacks? Shouldn't he have found out between snorts that his videos are being used to endorse terrorist activities? Also, at the start of the film we see everyone (including Killian) usher in Trevor like he was the real big boss not allowed to make eye contact when he arrives and starts filming. But we establish as well that he actually lives in that mansion and seems to be locked in so he doesn't get found out. So where exactly was he coming from? Maybe they had to shoot on location somewhere in the middle east, but given the technological capability of Killian's company, can't they just use very high quality green screen and CGI to do those outdoors videos? It seems really risky to fly Mandarin around for the shoots. But who cares, Ben Kingsley nailed portrayed that character perfectly as the story required, and I loved him both as the fake actor and as the ideological figurehead. :)

3. In the second/third act it is revealed that those henchmen of The Mandarin/Aldrich Killian are actually crippled soldiers who volunteered for the Extremis program to be cured of their disabilities. But then why are war veterans participating in terrorist activities for Killian? I guess Killian could have brainwashed them during the procedure, but wouldn't their family members have noticed or reported their disappearance or change in personality at some point? Also Pepper didn't seem to be affected despite her already being infected and transformed by the virus.

4. How did Killian control the Iron Patriot's suit? I mean Jarvis is the background control right? Later in the film James gets to use it again so it's seems to be very confused how they were able to use the suit to kidnap the President.

5. How on Earth did Happy Hogan survive the explosion at Stark Industries when the wooden stall he was hiding behind incinerated into nothing as did everything else within the 50 feet radius?

6. Just before the climax, The movie reveals that Stark's underground shed of older suits survived. If you actually count carefully when they reveal Tony's underground stash of Iron Mans there were about 8-10 suits per level and 6-7 levels altogether, so at least 48-70 suits should have been available. But since he also had 6 on the experiment level that makes at least 56 suits, despite his current one being Mark 42. Maybe some of them were duplicates, or Mark 42 wasn't his newest one. (yes I know, this is a really nitpicky nitpick)

6. Where exactly does Jarvis' mainframe reside? We establish since film 1 that he is an AI assistant, which is uploaded to each suit, implying his main presence must be somewhere unaffected by all the destructions to his home. This isn't a plot hole in the story but I'm just curious. Three movies and I think of all the creations of Stark's the most advanced one has to be his strong AI sidekick who can coordinate a small war on his behalf while also making witty remarks. So as a computer scientist I'd like to meet him eventually :)

Review - The Croods

Dreamworks has done it again. After a weak(ish) effort that was Rise of the Guardians, this unexpectedly quick follow up film is not only effective entertainment with strong character designs and character interactions, especially between the main characters, it is a very watchable and rewatchable family film with thematic layers deeper than I expected for a film targeted mostly at children (I will discuss these themes in the spoiler section). In fact, I think some of this story speaks even strongly to parents, especially dads.

There were lots of memorable scenes, the dialogues were funny, pointy and very quotable. The visuals are strong although I wouldn't say it's anything groundbreaking. It is the good quality animation Dreamworks has been producing with regularity in the past few years and I am glad that they've still got new ideas coming out of their warehouses.

I'm not very big fan of prehistoric settings in films, films like The Flintstones, 10000 BC, Brother Bear, Year One and to a lesser extent Ice Age are all in my bad books for various reasons, the only two films with this type of setting I enjoyed are Jurassic Park (which is technically not prehistoric anyway) and The Land Before Time (as a kid). The Croods may be my first positively rated prehistoric film, although it does suffer from too much modern day references, it isn't distracting to the point of forgetting that they are neanderthals.

The romance between the main romantic couple isn't shoved down your throat. While their connection is more fixated on a shared dream than on each other, you don't get the sense that the screenwriter is forcing you to accept their love, but rather they know you've already accepted it as the story unfolds.

And most importantly, we finally get a great father character in animation! In the form of Grug, we finally get to see parenting issues from the father's side; not where he has to juggle between his work and home, not because he is also a king or superhero, not when he's having a mid life crisis, but where his only job and goal is to protect and provide for his family. The story explores his beliefs, values and motivations in a very brisk manner but you can definitely see strong character design and development that went behind every one liner and over-the-top expression.

So if you haven't seen this film, I definitely recommend a watch. You won't get much more out of it from the theatres or 3D, so feel free to wait for the DVD, but it is definitely one of the stronger films I've seen this year, animation or not.

Story: A- | Characters: A+ | Originality: A- | Revelence: A | Entertainment: A

8/10

Spoilers ahead!

The Father, The Guy and Eep

Like I mentioned earlier, the strongest thing about this film are the characters. In particular three: Grug the father, Guy the...guy, and Epp the daughter/main character. While it is debatable whether Eep is technically a lead heroine in this story, as much of the first act focuses on the narrative of the Croods from her perspective, I think that she only takes the limelight at the beginning. The focus is passed around a bit, mostly with her father Grug. Guy is stronger than your average Disney prince, but only slightly as he doesn't really develop much as a character. It is however quite fun to watch him interact as his more sophisticated, educated neanderthal with the more barbaric violent family, who on multiple occasions almost kills guy just by being rough to him.

One of the main themes explored by these three characters are respect for wisdom of the past (Yesterday) versus the risk-taking courage to embrace what the future my bring (Tomorrow). We see this contrast most profoundly through their story telling in the middle of the film where Grug is very grounded in his beliefs that new things are bad, and we must tread carefully when doing or trying anything different. Guy obviously believes you should live life trying new things and new ideas.

However these two beliefs are not polar opposites because their drives are different. Grug applies his philosophy out of concern for his family (as well as a bit of ego since he likes to be proven right), while Guy applies his philosophy because he's already lost his family, thus we do have to be careful when taking the message out of context to our real world.

You would think that the story would center around Eep trying to choose between her father and Guy's way of life, but no. She clearly has already chosen Guy's adventurous, future-looking lifestyle, but the issue is more that she wants to win her father over to the other side and not just run there herself. This in a way helps glue all the characters together. Evidently Guy would've been fine if only Eep believed him and joined him on their escape from "the end", but for Eep she needed her whole family to come along.

The film also avoids addressing Eep's personal relationship with Grug fully for most of the film. They hint at a few scenes that she does feel guilty she has to argue with her dad about the right course of action every time, and during the climax of the film, you see Eep does in fact love her father very deeply underneath her frustrations and discontentment of his overbearing and outdated ways, when it came time to say goodbye she wasn't ready to because she realise there's so much they have yet to reconcile.

The sacrificial decision the father makes at end was also a very powerful and redemptive moment which I thought is much stronger than most main characters in other recent Dreamworks and Pixar films in terms of role models. At the end of his character arc Grug accepts that he is not able to become like Guy, but he finally believes that Guy can and will protect his family at least as good as he did, perhaps better, which is why he is willing to leave his family in the hands of guy when he threw all of them over the canyon and (presumably) giving up his own life. While I didn't tear up over that scene, I did remember thinking to myself "this is the best way they could have ended his character arc". But of course being a children's film they have to make sure he makes it too for a happily ever after.


Using your brain the right way.

A secondary theme that is touched on through most of the film is on the nature of invention. It gently walks us through man's discovery of fire, to the invention of more modern clothing, to use of objects as instruments of sound and music, surprisingly most of Guy's inventions are shown in the order they were historically discovered by humanity as well, so there you go, some accurate depiction of our past!

Then there is also Grug's set of inventions which he drafts up out of jealousy of Guy's new-found respect from his family. You can sort of tell that they are not as helpful to their journey to escape armageddon, which implies that not all new ideas are good or necessary. If you pursue new things for the sake of newness (as Grug tries in a desperate bid to regain his family's respect), they don't have the same weight as inventions that are functional and needs-driven.

This debate of self-improvement vs self-indulgence in innovation is a very relevant issue in today's society: the contrast between Grug and Guy's creations are allegorical to modern technology like smartphones vs. smartphone accessories. How you want to take their proposition is up to you but I think best to refer to Maslow's hierarchy of needs to decide when technology can afford to be more frivilous.



Lastly, The Nitpicks

Unlike most other films where I am being generous when I call gaping holes in a bad film's plot a nitpick, this film was surprisingly well scripted, paced and almost everything is explained in a coherent, logical manner. So the nitpicks here are really just nitpicks and they don't affect my enjoyment.

1. Too much mother-in-law jokes. I don't understand what's with the mother-in-law hate in America. Then again I don't have one yet so guess I may find out some day!

2. How come Guy still communicate well with the Croods? If he's been an orphan for so long and seemingly absent from other humans, and given the lack of written/recorded language back in the day, it is very likely he either forgot or evolved his language skills, or that they don't even speak the same language/dialect.

3. I don't agree with Guy's plan in the middle of the trip when he wants to split up to try more paths. Given that the Croods have actually been in a cave for so long, their new found curiosity but lack of experience could have easily gotten them killed without help or support from each other. I sit slightly on the conservative side of the risk taking spectrum myself so I'm might be biased. Also, how they all ended up in the same location at the end of that little trip through the maze was really lucky!

4. The Emergency Idea Generator employed by Guy to get out of the tar which he said not two minutes ago "nobody gets out of this"...seriously...that was just mood-destroying. I guess that would've been too dark a way to end the character arcs if they died there, or have some random outside event to pull them out of the situation which would've been too cheap. But all the depth and drama in the previous scene (where Guy tells Grug his tragic backstory and they reconcile their differences) was glossed over so quickly I almost felt it undid some of what made this film almost great. Having said that, it was a very fun scene which lets you forgive its sporadicity.

5. The 'idea' that Grug comes up with at the very end also pushed my disbelief a bit. I guess by this point if you're willing to buy all the fantastical creatures in this world, how invincible the croods are surviving falls from hundred meter high cliffs, you'll suspend your disbelief that little bit longer so they can have their happy ending.

6. Occasionally some more scenes in the film were pushing it too far with modern day references (especially when Grug tries to hip it up). But then again this isn't the only film which tries to recreate modern day concepts and tools using what's available within different settings.

7. While The Croods are cavemen and spend very little time outside at night, I do have my doubts whether they have never encountered fire before Guy came along. I mean, surely there's some occasional bushfires they must have seen while 'hunting'?