Review: Shaun the Sheep the Movie

Shaun the Sheep the Movie (U)

UK 2015  85 mins  Dir: Richard Starzak, Mark Burton  Starring (voices): Justin Fletcher, John Sparkes, Omid Djalili, Nick Park

It’s fair to say that Aardman won’t be needing to build a new trophy cabinet for this one. There are too many fart gags and too much timelessness-undermining pop music (Tim Wheeler, Eliza Doolittle, Rizzle Kicks) for that. But it is likely that they’ll need a much larger pot to store all their money, as Shaun the Sheep the Movie has the broadest demographic and international appeal of any of their movies to date, boosted by the bold decision to keep it free of dialogue. We might have adored the wit and sophistication of Peter Lord’s The Pirates! In an Adventures with Scientists! but the cold, hard fact is that it had Aardman’s weakest US opening, causing sequel plans to be quietly shelved. While Richard Starzak and Mark Burton’s expansion of the hugely successful Shaun franchise to the big screen is a more nakedly commercial proposition, it is also terrifically entertaining from start to finish, retaining enough distinctive hand-crafted Aardman charm to stand out from the factory-produced animated, er, flock.

After an opening home movie Mossy Bottom Farm origin sequence, Shaun (Fletcher) finds himself bored with daily routine and engineers a day off for the ovine gang by distracting the Farmer (Sparkes) as only sheep can. Alas, this sets into motion a train of events that leads to the unfortunate horny-handed toiler being whisked off to the Big City, where he bashes his head and loses his memory. Now it’s up to the flock, together with Bitzer (Sparkes) the long-suffering sheepdog, to leave their rural comfort zone and rescue him. Along the way, they dodge Animal Containment Officer Trumper (Djalili) and encounter cute orphan dog Slip, who must have the Aardman merchandising department rubbing their hands with glee.

Drawing on classic silent slapstick comedy, Starzak and Burton conjure up some fabulous set-pieces, including a beautifully choreographed sequence in the Le Cheu Brule restaurant (that’s ‘The Burnt Cabbage’) where the sheep struggle to disguise themselves as human; a magnificent trademark Aardman chase involving a pantomime horse; and a hilarious interlude in which bone-fixated Bitzer – Gromit’s yellow-hued, goofy-toothed dim country cousin – is mistaken for a surgeon. In a sly dig at celebrity culture, the Farmer, who bears an alarming resemblance to The Prodigy’s Keith Flint, uses his shearing skills to ply a new trade as hairdresser Mr. X, becoming a hipster hero via social media.

There are plenty of Aardman in-jokes and the occasional local reference to look for too. I shan’t give them all away here, but watch out for Nick Park’s cameo as a twitcher and the banner advertising Bristol’s Brief Encounters film festival on the way into the Big City. If you’re particularly eagle-eyed, you might even spot a couple of shop fronts that have been recycled from The Pirates!

Most impressively of all, Starzak and Burton have managed to invest a very English story with universal appeal. The absence of dialogue means we’re never distracted by trying to put names to a celebrity voice cast and can concentrate fully on all the blink-and-you’ll-miss-’em sight gags, while savouring such incidental funny business as the nonchalantly whistling duck and harmonica-playing goldfish.

For more on Shaun the Sheep the Movie, see our feature here and news story here.