Disc Reviews
Shaun The Sheep Movie
The latest offering from Aardman to be released on DVD and Blu-ray with the backing of StudioCanal is Shaun the Sheep Movie. What is essentially a 10 minute show on children’s TV has been stretched to feature length. Most critics gave the film a positive review, but expectations for the film working on the big screen and successfully stretching itself to feature length were not high, especially given that beyond murmuring and mumbling there is no dialogue.
As is traditional with British TV shows turned into feature films the story leaves its natural environs and ventures to an alien one, in this case from the farm to the big city. The story as such follows in the footpaths of other films such as Babe 2: Pig in the City (1998). In the film Shaun and all his sheep buddies escape from the farm to the city in search of some adventure for the day. The opening montage shows the young red haired farmer and his closeness to Shaun as they grow up and play, along with Blitzer, the farmer’s faithful sheep dog. This is contradicted by the present in which the very short sighted farmer now with bottle-top glasses and the sheep go through a daily grind starting at the crack of dawn. Behind them is Shaun’s childhood pal Blitzer who now seems more like a kapo as he slave drives the sheep. The wily Shaun, however, hatches an elaborate plot to escape with the other sheep to the big city for the day after seeing an advert on the side of a bus driving by. But this is tempered by the farmer being accidentally knocked out in his caravan which careers down the hill leaving him with concussion and memory loss. This is where the film digresses completely from the TV show as the sub-plot has the amnesiac farmer becoming a very fashionable barber – it would seem that using shears is in his DNA. Meanwhile the naughty pigs make the most of the occasion and hold teenage parties at the farm in the farmer’s absence. The sheep spend their time searching for the farmer in the city including going incognito in a French restaurant while being pursued by a particularly vindictive council animal containment officer. This is one of the funnier highlights of the film.
The apparent stop motion photography of Shaun the Sheep Movie works well as it uses the similar style to the Wallace and Gromit films (only they had dialogue) and moves at a reasonable pace making for a fun experience. The music by Ilan Eshkeri is annoyingly catchy while the twee title tune is by former Kaiser Chief Nick Hodgson in collaboration with Tim Wheeler from the band Ash.
No extras other than thoroughly good entertainment and, I hasten to add good fun for adults too.
Chris Hick