“The Croods: A New Age” is a bombastic animated feature film that moves at the speed of video games.

While children may enjoy the movie, parents and guardians may find the run-time of the movie better spent taking a nap.

“The Croods: A New Age” is a sequel to “Croods,” a 2013 animation feature film which introduced the characters:

Grug Crood (voiced by Nicolas Cage), a cave-man; Ugga Crood (Catherine Keener), a cave-woman and Grug’s wife, and Eep Crood (Emma Stone), their teenage daughter cave-girl.

There’s also Guy (Ryan Reynolds), a teenage cave-boy, and Gran (Cloris Leachman), Ugga’s mother.

The main characters and the actors who voice them are back for the sequel. There are also several supporting characters and the actors who voice them who have returned for the sequel, plus some new characters and new voices (Peter Dinklage, Leslie Mann).

In “The Croods: A New Age,” the prehistoric family, the Croods, compete with a family, the Bettermans, said to be more evolved. The quest again involves finding “Tomorrow.”

“The Croods: A New Age” is bright and frenetic and has excellent CGI animation. The colors are a pastel palette, reminiscent of My Little Pony toys. The characters’ faces are shaped somewhat like those of the toy Trolls dolls.

“The Croods: A New Age” is similar in design and art direction to “Moana,” the 2016 Disney animation feature.

The plot of “The Croods: A New Age” has a patched-together feel, with bursts of swinging, jumping and hitting action substituting for story development.

Mixed in with this, or, for me, mixed up with this are several sequences that play like music videos.

The film’s music director is Mark Mothersbaugh of the disco-synth band, Devo, as in de-evolution, which is nicely ironic.

In fairness to the DreamWorks Animation film-makers of “The Croods: A New Age,” production of the animated feature was impacted by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic shutdown in the United States and worldwide. A lot of the film’s final animation work was done from the residences of the film-makers.

Even so, the sequel could have been more, ahem, evolved.

The dialogue in “Croods: A New Age” is often crude, which is in keeping with the film’s phonetically intentionally-misspelled title. The plot takes place in a prehistoric period jokingly called The Croodaceous era.

The screenplay is by Kevin Hageman and Dan Hageman (both, screenwriters, “The Lego Ninjago Movie,” 2017; “The Lego Movie,” 2014; TV’s “Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia.” 2016) and Paul Fisher and Bob Logan (both, screenwriters, “The Lego Ninjago Movie,” 2017) from a story by Kirk DeMicco and Chris Sanders (who wrote and directed the original film, “The Croods”).

The dialogue isn’t particularly original or funny, unless you find nonverbal belches, which punctuate the film, the height of hilarity.

The characters’ voices, though by accomplished actors, aren’t particularly distinctive (save for the voice of Nicolas Cage, whose nasally drone sounds genuinely prehistoric). Moreover, the actors’ voices and their appearance aren’t reflected in the faces or physicality of the characters they voice, which is often the practice in animation. Again, regarding Nicolas Cage, the character he voices appears on screen as looking more like Arnold Schwarzenegger than H.I. McDunnough in “Raising Arizona” (1987) or other of his film roles.

Joel Crawford, in his feature film directorial debut, seems capable of managing the disparate elements. Yet there’s a dispirited, tired, lackluster (despite the fizzy, razzle-dazzle, colorful pace) feeling to the proceedings. We’ve seen most of this before.

This is not your grandfather’s “Flintstones.” And that’s part of the problem.

Hanna-Barbera Productions’ animated 30-minute TV sitcom, “The Flintstones” (1960 - 1966) was much funnier, albeit with old-school, hand-drawn, limited animation.

Now that’s old age.

As Fred Flintstone might agree: “Yabba-Dabba-Doo!”

“The Croods: A New Age,”

MPAA rated PG (Parental Guidance Suggested Some material may not be suitable for children. Parents urged to give “parental guidance.” May contain some material parents might not like for their young children.) for peril, action and rude humor; Genre: Animation, Adventure, Comedy. Run time: 1 hr., 35 min. Distributed by Universal Pictures.

Credit Readers Anonymous:

“I Think I Love You,” a No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hit by The Partridge Family in 1970, is heard and used to comedic effect during scenes in “The Croods: A New Age.” Tenacious D does a version of “I Think I Love You” on the soundtrack. Also played for fun is “True” (1983) by Spandau Ballet.

At the Movies:

“The Croods: A New Age” was seen at the Movie Tavern Trexlertown. The advance online ticketing worked smoothly. Face masks were worn. “Cleaned and Sanitized. Please remove before use” bands were placed on the seats, which were reserved and socially-distanced.

Box Office:

Dec. 18-20 weekend box office results were unavailable because of the early Focus section print deadline for the Christmas Day holiday.

Unreel:

Dec. 26-28:

“Wonder Woman 1984,”

PG-13: Patty Jenkins directs Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig, Robin Wright, Amr Waked and Lilly Aspell in the Action, Adventure, Fantasy film. Wonder Woman faces two new foes: Max Lord and The Cheetah.

“News of the World,”

PG-13: Paul Greengrass directs Tom Hanks, Helena Zengel, Ray McKinnon and Mare Winningham in the Action, Adventure, Drama. A Civil War veteran agrees to chaperon a girl, taken against her will by the Kiowa people years ago, on a trip to her aunt and uncle.

“Pinocchio,”

No MPAA rating: Matteo Garrone directs Roberto Benigni, Marine Vacth and Massino Ceccherini in the Drama Fantasy. A live-action adaptation of Carlo Collodi’s novel about the boy puppet who comes to life.

“Promising Young Woman,”

R: Emerald Fennell directs Carey Mulligan, Jennifer Coolidge, Adam Brody, Ray Nicholson, Laverne Cox, Alison Brie and Molly Shannon in the Comedy Crime Drama. A young woman seeks revenge.

“One Night in Miami,”

R: Regina King directs Kingsley Ben-Adir, Eli Goree, Aldis Hodge, Leslie Odom Jr. and Beau Bridges in the Drama. A fictional account about Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Sam Cooke and Jim Brown meeting and talking about the 1960s’ Civil Rights movement.

Two Popcorn Boxes out of Five Popcorn Boxes