Don’t see this early, man.
Aardman Animations, the popular stop-motion clay animation studio responsible making for Wallace & Gromit, Chicken Run and Shaun the Sheep among other properties is back with their latest film Early Man. I didn’t know all that much about Early Man before seeing it apart from it being made by the studio mentioned above, which got me quite excited as I have enjoyed pretty much everything they’ve done except for The Pirates! Band of Misfits which came out in 2012 which was enjoyable but below their high standard that they’ve set for themselves.
So Early Man tells the story of Dug and his loyal pig sidekick Hognob as they prepare their tribe to battle against a Bronze Age city leader to save their home. Although this battle is not with weapons but is a soccer match between the tribe and the Bronze Age star soccer team who are undefeated.
Let’s start this review with the positives, the animation as always from Aardman is beautiful, it’s no wonder that they are the powerhouse studio when it comes to stop-motion clay animation. Every frame in the movie is amazing to look at and there’s no denying the amount of time and hard work that went into making the movie look as great as it does, so hats off to them. Another positive is that there is a very well done comedic scene involving the enemy leader receiving a massage treatment from the pig Hognob, it’s hard to explain it in writing but it is most definitely the standout scene of the movie for me. Also, the voice cast is splendid to listen to as Eddie Redmayne (Newt Scamander in Fantastic Beasts), Tom Hiddleston (Loki in the Thor films), Massie Williams (Arya Stark in Game of Thrones) and Richard Ayoade (Moss in The IT Crowd), all bring these Claymation characters to life. Although that’s pretty much all I enjoyed about the movie sadly, to me the rest of the movie was a huge disappointment.
Now obviously when seeing a kids/family film you have to keep in mind that the film is supposed to appeal to this target audience but honestly I don’t see this being a huge hit with families or kids. The screening I went to was full of families and kids of all ages and the audience response wasn’t great, there was hardly any laughter or general amusement from kids (you know how kids will voice their enjoyment or shock during a film) most of the children were pretty restless throughout, constantly moving about and not paying attention to the screen. So with that in mind, I don’t think I’m being too harsh when I say that this is probably Aardman’s least enjoyable feature to date, don’t get me wrong there are definitely some enjoyable moments throughout but as a whole the movie is quite weak and not all that entertaining. I think the main problem with film apart from the lack of focus throughout the story is that it doesn’t know who to appeal to, as it doesn’t really work as kids’ film nor does it work as a kid’s film that adults could enjoy (Toy Story). For example a lot of the jokes throughout the film seem to be aimed at adults, but are too immature or childish to be funny for an adult and obviously with that being said, kids won’t get the references in these jokes and may only laugh due to the character doing something funny on screen, if that makes sense.
Yeah, this was a big disappointment for me, I was looking forward to seeing it, but halfway through the screening I lost interest and couldn’t wait for it to be over. It’s not awful by any means but just painfully mediocre, which in Aardman’s case makes it so much more disappointing than if it was some first-time studio. Unlike a lot of other properties they’ve done in the past, I would have no interest in returning to this world or seeing these characters again, apart from maybe Hognob.