[four-star-rating]Directed by Mark Burton and Richard Starzak[/four-star-rating]
Aardman Studios – the brilliant clay animation artists behind the veddy British animated comedies Chicken Run and Wallace and Gromit – are back!
For a while there, they were speeding up, cleaning up, and saving money by supplementing their clay work with computer animation. That process robbed their recent films of some DIY charm. Shaun the Sheep is a welcomed throwback to their roots, where you can still see the thumbprints in the clay.
This warm and fuzzy film takes a bold risk and cuts out the dialogue altogether. So it’s all sight gags and sound effects. Though it’s aimed at children, sight gags are universally funny.
The lack of speech is quaint; it also means the story itself sometimes lacks drive, stopping to set up one visual joke after another. The plot is extraordinarily simple and unsurprising; the artistry behind the film, though, is – forgive the pun – a sheer delight!
Shaun and his other sheep on Mossy Bottom Farm are bored by their routine – they get up, attend roll call, eat, and sleep. Every so often their near-blind, clueless owner sheers them. The loyal farm dog Bitzer diligently monitors them. The pigs nearby mock them. That’s life.
Then, Shaun gets a harebrained idea to shake things up a bit. This plan ends in catastrophe. The pigs move into the house. The farmer gets amnesia and takes an unexpected ride to the city. So, Shaun, Bitzer, and the other sheep have to go into the big metropolis to get their owner back!
To up the tension, a sadistic animal control officer is ready to catch any stray animals in the city. He likes to lock them up for good!
The plusses in this wooly adventure are not just in the visual gags, which are built around solid, dry British humor. I love the hand-built sets and clay characters meticulously manipulated and filmed one frame at a time. It’s animation at it’s most elemental, and I’m a huge fan.
Aardman Studios is 43 years old, started by Peter Lord and David Sproxton. In 1989, they won their first Oscar for Nick Park’s Creature Comforts. Director Nick Park created the general look of their characters, a design aesthetic that carries through Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run, Flushed Away, The Pirate Movie, and this film. Park even created Shaun in 1995; this is the sheep’s first full-length film after having a popular British television series.
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After years in the business – doing everything from shorts to gas commercials – Aardman may not be inventing anything new artistically or story-wise. First-time directors Mark Burton and Richard Starzak have worked with the studio for years, so they know the brand, and they follow the herd of successes before them. Like all other Aardman works, Shaun’s ability to sell sight gags and action using only clay characters is clearly magical.
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