I am a fan of the majority of Aardman animations and, in the case of Shaun the Sheep, have even found them to be great across cultures – watching one episode in the family section of a typically grey airport in Russia, laughing at Shaun with my German boss and some random Russian old men. However hearing of this film did make me wonder if a show with 5-minute story arcs aimed at young children, could really be extended to fill a movie. In some ways the plot does play with very old chestnuts to make this happen (amnesia) but to be fair it works because it produces something to rise above that.
The film is many things, and it does them all consistently. It is first and foremost kind-hearted and without malice; there are a few jokes in there that maybe are a bit off-color, but even then it is not really crude in the way some things can be. It uses this as a bed of charm to have plenty of good laughs, great set-pieces, and a good handful of moments of quite surprising emotional impact. The film takes a lot from the old silent comedy, with a plot structured on moments rather than a huge narrative arc (albeit the "get the farmer back" is the overall sweep of it). As such the film pleases in almost every scene, as it is charmingly funny, and also pretty trusting with the viewer to get the jokes – whether it not overly explaining things, or trusting us to remember something as a callback. The film has one or two cultural references in there that probably will not travel too well, but mostly it is universal in its appeal – and a man in his late 30's such as I, a young child, or a group of Russian men in an airport, will all find it very easy to love. The stop-motion animation looks effortless (which it most certainly is not), and of course it brings with it that sense of the realness of the characters and material that CGI can never seem to reproduce.
The Shaun the Sheep Movie is a great piece of work – funny, charming, touching, clever, and totally universal; hard to imagine many people who do not get won over by it – it even has the courtesy to leave its only misstep (that awful Rizzle Kicks version of the theme song) until late in the closing credits so that few will actually see it (presumably they did it to make the cinema clear quicker).
The film is many things, and it does them all consistently. It is first and foremost kind-hearted and without malice; there are a few jokes in there that maybe are a bit off-color, but even then it is not really crude in the way some things can be. It uses this as a bed of charm to have plenty of good laughs, great set-pieces, and a good handful of moments of quite surprising emotional impact. The film takes a lot from the old silent comedy, with a plot structured on moments rather than a huge narrative arc (albeit the "get the farmer back" is the overall sweep of it). As such the film pleases in almost every scene, as it is charmingly funny, and also pretty trusting with the viewer to get the jokes – whether it not overly explaining things, or trusting us to remember something as a callback. The film has one or two cultural references in there that probably will not travel too well, but mostly it is universal in its appeal – and a man in his late 30's such as I, a young child, or a group of Russian men in an airport, will all find it very easy to love. The stop-motion animation looks effortless (which it most certainly is not), and of course it brings with it that sense of the realness of the characters and material that CGI can never seem to reproduce.
The Shaun the Sheep Movie is a great piece of work – funny, charming, touching, clever, and totally universal; hard to imagine many people who do not get won over by it – it even has the courtesy to leave its only misstep (that awful Rizzle Kicks version of the theme song) until late in the closing credits so that few will actually see it (presumably they did it to make the cinema clear quicker).