COULD it be that the Summer holidays are almost upon us? A shift towards the family market at the multiplex certainly seems to suggest as much.

First up - by a few million years - The Croods 2. This is the long time coming sequel to 2013 animated, prehistoric hit The Croods. Nicholas Cage, Emma Stone and Ryan Reynolds head up an all star cast, lending their voices to a script that boasts one or two neat gags and should pass the time well.

In essence, the story here is much the same as last time around. The Croods are still in search of a place to call home, with paranoid patriarch Grug (Cage) still wholly wary of his daughter’s (Stone’s Eep) other half: Guy (Reynolds).

This time around, the family find themselves stumbling across an idyll, one run by modernist fashionistas Hope and Phil Betterman (Leslie Mann and Peter Dinklage, respectively). While the Croods live their best Neanderthal lives, the Bettermans have managed to pioneer advanced farming methods, alongside newfangled concepts like clothes, soap, and privacy. Imagine that!

Friction ensues, eventually drifting aside in the face of a common enemy. The visuals are bright and the jokes peppy. It’s all a little noisy but efficiently so.