“I try not to put too much stock in movie reviews. I know, odd thing for a movie blogger to say, but I try to stress that my write ups are opinions and not to be taken as fact, and they’re also an excuse to write about personal experiences. Anyways, but as far as real reviews, I’ll sort of take the temperature on things just to know what to expect, but I don’t let them dictate what I see. At most, it’ll influence priority and scheduling (such as picking The Gift over Fantastic Four, and saving Four for later, which I still eventually saw). Especially if something I’m genuinely interested is getting written up poorly, I’ll still give it a chance. However really good reviews across the board, with specific reasoning why (not just a generic “”it was great!””), will add a movie to my watch list. That was the case with Shaun the Sheep. Didn’t really have too much interest in it, particularly since I’ve gotten more and more picky about animated children’s films, but I heard enough positives (plus knowing Aardman’s sterling reputation for quality) to tack it on to the somewhat light schedule I had.
Aardman Animations is responsible for a lot of claymation works, most notably the Wallace and Grommit films and shorts as well as Chicken Run. Their style is fantastically creative and utterly cute. When Boxtrolls (not Aardman) came out a couple years ago, I lamented that their stopmotion looked more like computer animation (largely due to the 3d printing used on a large scale), and that the charm of stop motion was lost. Aardman maintains that. They’re calculated and convervative with their shots and motion, and it reminds me why this animation captivates me.
As far as the story goes, it was pretty minimal, just serving as an excuse for things to happen. We have a group of sheep who wander into the city to find their lost farmer, and get into all sorts of shenanigans. It did drag on a couple times, and I’m not sure the novelty of the animation stood up to a whole 90 minutes, but it was cute. What’s worth calling out as being particularly beautiful about the whole thing was that there was no real dialog. Everything was visual. It’s amazing how in this current age of big technology and bigger movies, it’s the simple things that have the biggest impact
Shaun the Sheep Movie – \m/ \m/ \m/”