5 Children’s Movies to Stream Now
In this 2020 sequel to its 2013 predecessor, we’re back with the “world’s first family,” the Croods. There’s the overprotective patriarch, Grug (voiced by Nicolas Cage); the matriarch, Ugga (Catherine Keener); their teen daughter, Eep (Emma Stone); their lug-headed son, Thunk (Clark Duke); Ugga’s mother, Gran (Cloris Leachman); and Guy (Ryan Reynolds), Eep’s boyfriend who’s been welcomed into their family unit.
When the Croods stumble upon a walled-in commune bursting with fluorescent fruit that look straight out of “The Wizard of Oz,” they meet the Bettermans, a more modern family (by cave-man standards). The parents, Hope (Leslie Mann) and Phil (Peter Dinklage), welcome the Croods, but then secretly scheme to get Guy to stay and marry the Bettermans’ daughter, Dawn (Kelly Marie Tran).
Eep and Dawn soon become besties, but the adults find their value systems clashing since the Bettermans think they’re, well, better than the Croods. When Grug, Phil and Guy get kidnapped by a tribe of monkeys and taken to a giant, scary baboon-like creature, it’s up to the women (and Thunk) to save them. In the end, a “stronger together” moral prevails.
Joel Crawford (“Trolls Holiday”) directed. Kevin Hageman, Dan Hageman (both writers on “Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans”), Paul Fisher and Bob Logan (both writers on “The Lego Ninjago Movie”) collaborated on the script.
