The sheep on a small farm hatch a clever plan to have a day off, but things turn awry as their farmer ends up in the city with amnesia in this animated comedy from Aardman. While based on a television series of the same name, the film works remarkably well even with limited knowledge of the show and characters, though the most remarkable aspect of 'Shaun the Sheep Movie' is the complete absence of dialogue. There are some awkward bits in which the human characters mutter incomprehensibly to one another, but for the most part, the film spins an incredibly involving story without the need for spoken words throughout. Not of all the humour is slapstick either, which would have been an easy trap to fall into here. There are some neat visual puns, like a cow literally jumping over the moon, while the funniest moments come from the claymation humans reacting to all the chaos around them (look out for one foreground character's reaction when the animal catcher becomes stuck inside a horse!). There is also an amazingly funny part in which the sheepdog is mistaken for a surgeon and the patient being operated on is heavily anesthetised after trying to point out his tail to the operating room nurses. Not all of the gags work and the climax is more than a little over-the-top, but this is otherwise a surprising delight from start to finish.
Review of Shaun the Sheep Movie
