The unusually dark and violent Rise of the Guardians made me wonder if Dreamworks Animation had lost its touch, but with their next movie, The Croods, the studio really made up for it. Despite being the Aardman movie that wasn’t and a production delay for about a year, the movie turned out amazingly well and embodies everything that the studio stands for: a solid story, great characters and wonderful animation. This is more than just a run-of-the-mill cave-family-movie, it’s an entirely fresh and original take on a simple idea. The DVD release is a bit of a disappointment, tough – the distributor switch from Paramount to Fox apparently means that Dreamworks has given up on the commentary track, but at least the movie looks as good as possible and there are even some deleted scenes as extras.

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