50. The Red Turtle (2016)
Directed by: Michaël Dudok de Wit
Written by: Michaël Dudok de Wit and Pascale Ferran
Starring: N/A
Music by: Laurent Perez del Mar
Rated: PG
During a storm, a man gets stranded on a deserted island where his escape attempts are constantly thwarted by a mysterious giant red turtle. When the man lets his emotions get the better of him and seemingly kills the turtle, the reptile then transforms into a beautiful red-haired woman, who not only survives, but falls in love with the man…
Between When Marnie Was There and the embarrassment that was Earwig and the Witch, there was another project that Studio Ghibli managed to complete during their half-a-decade long hiatus. When their current European dubbing company, Wild Bunch, first joined up with the house that Miyazaki built, they decided to collaborate with each other, along with other French companies, to make their only collaboration that isn’t considered part of Ghibli’s canon.
The Red Turtle uses is dialogue-free Cast Away/Robinson Crusoe scenario, to tell an emotional story of love and family, in spite of being stranded. While the titular red turtle doesn’t appear for as long in the story, it is the unnamed man and his emotional journey, that is in line with Ghibli’s best works. As expected, the background animation is stunning and the ending is extremely emotional.
Overall, The Red Turtle is a charming and powerful film about finding love even in the darkest moments of life and the beauty of nature.
Rating: 4.5/5
49. Chico and Rita (2010)
Directed by: Fernando Trueba, Javier Mariscal and Tono Errando
Written by: Fernando Trueba and Ignacio Martínez de Pisón
Starring: Limara Meneses, Eman Xor Oña, Mario Guerra, Jon Adams and Renny Arozarena
Music by: Bebo Valdés
Rated: 15
Set in Havana, Cuba, an old man named Chico (Eman Xor Oña) thinks about his youth in the late 1940s, where he met and fell in love with a beautiful singer named Rita (Limara Meneses). Despite their immature approach to maintaining a stable relationship, Rita’s career as a Latin singer leads to them ending up in New York City, where dreams are made, or broken forever…
The second of two European indie films to be nominated for Best Animated Feature in the 2012 Academy Awards along with A Cat in Paris, Chico & Rita is a sensual and heartbreaking look into the troubles Latin American artists and singers had to go through in the mid twentieth century. While the love story is passionate enough, it is the subtext where this film shines strongly.
Directors Fernando Trueba, Javier Mariscal and Tono Errando manage to blend hand-drawn characters with stylistic CGI backgrounds to create a living graphic novel-feel to the film. While some of the blending could have been done better, it is the dance sequences that really gives Chico & Rita its identity.
Overall, Chico & Rita is a bittersweet and sexy love story that pays tribute to Latin American artists and is a sweet romance story as well.
Rating: 4.5/5
48. Soul (2020) (Winner of 2020 Best Animated Feature Award)
Directed by: Pete Docter
Written by: Pete Docter, Mike Jones and Kemp Powers
Starring: Jamie Foxx, Tina Fey, Graham Norton, Rachel House, Alice Braga, Richard Ayoade, Phylicia Rashad, Donnell Rawlings, Questlove and Angela Bassett
Music by: Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross and Jon Batiste
Rated: PG
Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx) is a middle-school music teacher from New York, who wants to become a famous jazz musician due to his passion for the art. When he finally gets his big break by being asked to perform for jazz celebrity Dorothea Williams (Angela Bassett), he falls into a manhole cover and gets his soul separated from his body. Desperate to avoid being sent to The Great Beyond, he ends up going to a place where souls gain personalities before being born on Earth called the You Seminar, where he is assigned to guide 22 (Tina Fey), a sarcastic soul who doesn’t want to leave, to gaining her personality…
Out of all of the names attached to the incredible Pixar Animation Studios, few have left an impact than the current CEO of the Emeryville company, Pete Docter. Along with Andrew Stanton, Joe Ranft and the disgraced John Lasseter, Pete was one of the main founders of what Pixar became today by being a writer on the first two Toy Story films, before finally becoming the first director that wasn’t John with 2001’s Monsters Inc. His next two films, 2009’s Up and 2015’s Inside Out, proved to be far more ambitious than even most Pixar films produced at the time by tackling more risky ambitions for mainstream animation such as having an elderly protagonist in the former and giving a powerful message about the inevitability of change and the importance of sadness in the latter.
As 2020 marks the third time in the studio’s history in which they released two films in one year after 2015’s Inside Out and The Good Dinosaur and 2017’s Cars 3 and Coco, animation fans and audiences alike were highly anticipating Pete’s fourth film and his first since being promoted to CEO in 2018, especially when Soul would be the first Pixar film to have a black protagonist and would be a spiritual successor to Inside Out, by being focused on the existential experiences of being human, only instead of emotions, it is souls and personalities.
Although the story does lack some of the emotional weight of Docter’s last two films due to the confusing implications of how the Soul world works, the rushed first act and some of the concepts being bit too ambiguous, it is worth remembering that that it is still an incredible film with a touching message on how easy it is to lose sight of the meaning of life.
The animation is absolutely fantastic with the design of the human characters being so impressive that one must congratulate Pixar on coming so far since the plastic human designs of the first Toy Story film while The Great Before, the You Seminar and the Astral Plane are just as impressive as Riley’s emotion world from Inside Out with a dash of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, in terms of animation variety.
Overall, Soul may not be Docter’s best film due to the already mentioned problems and the second act may throw a lot of people off due to its similarities to Brave of all things, but it is still another wonderful Pixar classic that pushes animation to new heights and celebrates the wonders of life itself!
Rating: 4.5/5
47. How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019)
Directed by: Dean DeBlois
Written by: Dean DeBlois
Starring: Jay Baruchel, America Ferrera, F. Murray Abraham, Cate Blanchett, Craig Ferguson, Gerard Butler, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Kristen Wiig, Justin Rupple and Kit Harington
Music by: John Powell
Rated: PG
A year after becoming the chief of Berk and alpha dragon, Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) and Toothless have saved hundreds of dragons and brought them home. But his friends Astrid (America Ferrera), Gobber (Craig Ferguson) and his mother, Valka (Cate Blanchett), have started to realise that a dragon-viking utopia might not be enough to keep them safe. Their fears are realised when Grimmel the Grisly (F. Murray Abraham), a dragon trapper responsible for wiping out nearly all of the Night Furies, destroys the village. In desperation, Hiccup decides to relocate the Vikings and the Dragons to “The Hidden World” a place where dragons are rumoured to have come from, while Toothless gets distracted by the arrival of a female “Light Fury”…
Although DreamWorks Animation did start to move away from their early 2000s image of pop culture comedies like Shrek and Madagascar in 2008 with the excellent Kung Fu Panda, it wasn’t until 2010 when the company released How to Train Your Dragon, a loose adaptation of Cressedia Cowell’s book series of the same name that cemented a short lived era of character-driven films thanks to critics and audiences falling in love with the adventures of Hiccup, a young Viking and Toothless the adorable Night Fury dragon.
After numerous short films, a tv series spanning eight seasons, a Walking With Dinosaurs-inspired arena show and an excellent sequel released in 2014, the saga of Hiccup and Toothless finally came to an end in 2019, with DreamWorks Animation’s first film under their new partnership with Universal, in a bittersweet, yet emotionally satisfying way.
Although the story does lack the shocking twists that made the first two films memorable, and the main antagonist Grimmel, while having an interesting background, is just a replacement for the second film’s Drago, the love-story between Toothless and the Light Fury is so adorable and sweet and Hiccups’ arc, while a bit rushed at times, does tackle issues that other animated film don’t address often, such as failure to achieve a dream and having to accept reality.
As with the last two films, the animation is stunning thanks once again to Roger Deakin’s influence in the cinematography and editing. The Hidden World in particular, takes influence from numerous Studio Ghibli films in terms of production design and in some of the newer dragons such as the antlered one and Grimmel’s mind-controlled armies, and John Powell’s score is outstanding as usual.
Overall, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World ends the story of Hiccup and Toothless on a wonderful, yet tearjerking high. Although the villain is a missed opportunity and those expecting something darker than “that moment” in the second film may be disappointed, DreamWorks Animation can finally claim Pixar’s title for best animated trilogy due to Toy Story 4‘s existence!
Rating: 4.5/5
46. Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (2024)
Directed by: Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham
Written by: Mark Burton
Starring: Ben Whitehead, Peter Kay, Lauren Patel and Reece Sheersmith
Music by: Julian Nott and Lorne Balfe
Rated: U
Getting into a habit of inventing loads more stuff than usual, Cheese-loving inventor, Wallace (Ben Whitehead) annoys his best friend, Gromit, when his latest invention, a “smart-gnome” named Norbert (Reece Shearsmith), starts doing all of Gromit’s work, even though the lovable dog loves doing things himself. After Gromit accidentally plugs Norbert into a computer, it soon catches the attention of his and Wallace’s old nemesis, Feathers McGraw. the criminal chicken (penguin), from The Wrong Trousers, who seeks “Vengeance most fowl” after spending years of imprisonment at the zoo…
After making two sequels in a row with Farmageddon: A Shaun the Sheep Movie and Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget for Netflix, Aardman Animations have decided to go back to their most famous franchise for their third sequel in five years. Although the creator of everyone’s favourite inventor and dog duo, Wallace and Gromit, Nick Park previously stated that there would be no more feature-length films, due to clashes with DreamWorks Animation during production of the duo’s first movie, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, feeling that they worked best in commercials and shorts such as 2008’s A Matter of Loaf and Death and the tragic death of Wallace’s voice actor, Peter Sallis in 2017, the company’s recent success in their distribution deal with Netflix, would eventually lead them back to 62 West Wallaby Street, almost two decades after Were-Rabbit.
As expected from Aardman’s talents, the stop-motion animation and humour are still incredibly impressive and extremely funny, with some of the funniest sight gags in the entire franchise. Furthermore, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl does manage to break the conventional rules of each entry being stand-alone adventures, by having this film be a direct sequel to the events of the second short film, 1993’s The Wrong Trousers.
As that film is, as of 2024, the most critically acclaimed entry of the franchise and was the film that won the duo their first Academy Award and their mainstream success around the world, it was a only a matter of time before that film’s breakout character, the evil penguin, Feathers McGraw, would return in another film (After being a main antagonist in a 2003 video game, Project Zoo and in the long lost stage adaptation of Wallace & Gromit in the late 1990s). However, while the little penguin is still as creepy as ever, more could have been done with him, as most of the film is taken up by his new minions, the robot smart-gnomes.
Reece Shearsmith does manage to get some of the biggest laughs as Norbert the gnome, Petey Kay makes a welcome return from Curse of the Were-Rabbit as an older Pc Mackintosh, but it is Ben Whitehead, who, after debuting as the new voice of Wallace in the video game, Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures in 2008 and refining his skills over the last decade in commercials, whose work has finally paid off in sounding exactly like the late Peter Sallis, who would be extremely proud of him.
Overall, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, aside from a padded out subplot involving a young police officer (Lauren Patel), is one of the best things to have come out of Aardman in years and a cracking return for a new era of invention, cheese and crackers for one man and his loyal dog.
Rating: 4.5/5
45. Ernest & Célestine (2012)
Directed by: Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar and Benjamin Renner
Written by: Daniel Pennac
Starring: Lambert Wilson/ Forest Whitaker, Pauline Brunner/ Mackenzie Foy, Anne-Marie Loop/ Lauren Bacall, Pierre Baton/ Paul Giamatti, Dominique Collignon/ William H. Macy, Brigitte Virtudes/ Megan Mullally and Patrice Melennec/ Nick Offerman
Music by: Vincent Courtois
Rated: U
In a society in which bears and rodents live apart in fear and resentment live two outcasts. Ernest (Lambert Wilson and Forest Whitaker) is a poor hungry grizzly who loves music and Célestine (Pauline Brunner and Mackenzie Foy) is a young mouse forced to abandon her love of drawing for a boring internship for a dentist. While on a mission to retrieve bear cub’s teeth to replace mice incisors, Célestine ends up meeting Ernest and, after a series of mishaps involving sweet and tooth stealing, ends up living with him while both the bear and mouse communities are hunting them down…
Based on a series of French children’s books by Gabrielle Vincent, Ernest & Célestine is an adorable film about overcoming differences and unlikely friendships. Being one of the rare independent animated films to have been successful enough for a franchise, gaining a television series and a sequel in 2022, it is easy to see why this happened, as its story of a bear and a mouse’s friendship in spite of their prejudicial backgrounds, is so heartwarming, and very funny in its satire.
While the resolution to the prejudice plot is resolved a little too abruptly, the highlights of Ernest & Célestine is the storybook-like animation style and the two main leads. In spite of having really funny moments, the emotional moments don’t shy away from the sadness of their situation, especially in the radio and courtroom scenes.
Overall, Ernest & Célestine is an adorable, funny and beautifully animated friendship story that is so much fun to watch. While the ending could have been longer, the film deserves its status as one of the best European animated films of the last decade.
Rating: 4.5/5
44. Inside Out 2 (2024)
Directed by: Kelsey Mann
Written by: Meg LeFauve and Dave Holdstein
Starring: Amy Poehler, Maya Hawke, Kensington Tallman, Liza Lapira, Tony Hale, Phyllis Smith, Lewis Black, Ayo Edebiri, Lilimar, Grace Lu, Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Diane Lane, Kyle MacLachlan and Paul Walter Hauser
Music by: Andrea Datzman
Rated: U
Two years after settling into life in San Francisco, Riley Anderson (Kensington Tallman) is now a teenager, with her emotions, Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Tony Hale) and Disgust (Liza Lapira) ready to guide her throughout the next stage of her life. However, when Riley goes to a hockey camp for the weekend, Joy and her friends are kicked out of headquarters by four new emotions named Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos) and Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser), who are convinced that Riley only needs them to get through teenage life. However, Joy and the gang also have to recover Riley’s “sense of self” a device that can influence Riley’s personality, in order to stop her from making bad decisions to fit in…
It is fair to say that both Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios have been hit pretty hard by not only the COVID pandemic, but also changing audience tastes as well. While Pixar’s Disney+ trilogy (Soul, Luca and Turning Red) and Disney’s Encanto have been huge successes on the streaming service and 2023’s Elemental ended up being mildly successful at the box office due to excellent financial legs, everything else has been an utter disaster. Lightyear ended up taking the Toy Story franchise in a direction that was extremely divisive, Strange World became one the biggest financial bombs for Walt Disney Animation, and, to make matters worse, their 100th anniversary film, Wish, became one of the biggest disappointments in years for the company.
As a result of this, both Disney and Pixar have decided to go back to something that they previously said they would do less of in the 2020s, sequels. With a two-part third Frozen adventure, Zootopia 2 and even a fifth Toy Story film planned from both studios, the first of these new sequels is thankfully, something that can be interesting, if done right. Out of all of Pixar’s films, the one with the most potential to be expanded is the 2015 hit, Inside Out, a fantastic film that explored the living emotions of a young girl to help her get through life.
Much like how the first film saved Pixar from their first slump in the early 2010s, this sequel does the same thing for helping the studio get out of its current state, by expanding the concepts that Pete Doctor introduced, and, much like Toy Story 2 and 3, made it feel like a natural continuation instead of a rehash. While not as emotionally devastating as the first film, Inside Out 2 does manage to contain the same powerful messages that made the studio’s best films work so well, with Joy’s conflict with new emotion Anxiety, having a powerful moral about staying true to yourself, in spite of having more complex feelings as a teenager.
Amy Poehler, Lewis Black and Phyllis Smith are once again fantastic as Joy, Anger and Sadness, and new voices for Fear and Disgust, Tony Hale (who voiced Forky in Toy Story 4) and Liza Lapira, do good jobs as these lovable characters. However, it’s Maya Hawke’s Anxiety who completely steals the show, complete with an adorable muppet-like character design and a more complex role as an antagonistic, yet well-meaning character. Although there has been a recent trend of animated films depicting panic attacks, Inside Out 2’s take in the concept, may be one of the best examples, with it leading to the emotionally intense third act that people have loved about the best of Pixar’s filmography. However, the film is also very funny in how it depicts concepts such as the “sar-chasm”, two hilarious moments involving new “Bing Bong”-like characters, and another emotion only there for nostalgia jokes.
Overall, with stunning animation. entertaining characters old and new, and an emotional new story about having even more complicated feelings, Inside Out 2 is a step in the right direction for Pixar, that balances the needs for expanding franchises, along with telling a story worth telling.
Rating: 4.5/5
43. The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2013)
Directed by: Isao Takahata
Written by: Isao Takahata and Riko Sakagucchi
Starring: Aki Asakura/ Chloë Grace Moretz, Kengo Kora/ Darren Criss, Takeo Chii/ James Caan and Nobuko Miyamoto/ Mary Steenburgen
Music by: Joe Hisaishi
Rated: U
A long time ago, in tenth century Japan, an old bamboo cutter (Takeo Chii and James Caan) discovers a tiny baby girl inside a bamboo pole. While raising the young girl, Lil’ Bamboo (Aki Asakura and Chloë Grace Moretz), alongside his wife (Nobuko Miyamoto and Mary Steenburgen), the Bamboo Cutter is convinced that she should have the life of a princess, and moves his family to the capital. However, as Lil’ Bamboo, now renamed Princess Kaguya, grows up within her strict new life, she slowly starts to remember the true reason she came to Earth…
A passion project for Studio Ghibli’s other most important director, Isao Takahata, ever since trying to get an adaptation off the ground in 1960, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya is a powerful and visually stunning version of one of the most iconic legends of Japanese folklore, The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, in which the stories influence can be seen in the likes of Naruto, Sailor Moon and even an episode of Pokémon.
For what would end up being Takahata’s last film before his death in 2018, Princess Kaguya is set apart from other versions, by being a character driven take on the story. As the titular protagonist is forced to keep changing her lifestyle in order to make her family happy, the emotional breakdowns, especially in the heartbreaking final moments, does give her relationships with her adopted parents and her friends, much more weight.
Even though the groundbreaking animation style could have been pushed even further in some scenes, Isao Takahata’s take on The Tale of the Princess Kaguya is still one of the best adaptations of the folktale, and an excellent tragedy about family love and life itself, on its own terms.
Rating: 4.5/5
42. Encanto (2021) (Winner of 2021 Best Animated Feature Award)
Directed by: Jared Bush and Byron Howard
Written by: Charise Castro Smith and Jared Bush
Starring: Stephanie Beatriz, María Cecilia Botero, John Leguizamo, Mauro Castillo, Jessica Darrow, Angie Cepeda, Carolina Gaitán, Diane Guerrero and Wilmer Valderrama
Music by: Germiane Franco
Rated: U
Hidden within the mountains and jungles of Columbia, South America, a house known as a Casita has a will of its own and serves as the home of the Madrigal family. Over the years, the Casita has granted every member a supernatural ability, except for the youngest daughter, Mirabel (Stephanie Beatriz), who desperately wants to make her family proud of her. When a series of events leads to Mirabel having visions of the destruction of the magic house, she must search through the entire place to find out the truth about it and herself…
It has been eleven years since Walt Disney Animation Studios celebrated reaching a major milestone in their animated filmography with Tangled being their fiftieth officially made film in 2010. Fast-forward years of enjoying success with the likes of Wreck-it Ralph, Big Hero 6, Zootopia, Moana and the Frozen films throughout the 2010s Disney Revival Era, the studio’s second animated film of 2021 after Raya and the Last Dragon, Encanto, finally brings that number of films up to sixty.
Being the fourth animated Disney film to be set in South America after the two 1940s package films Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros and 2000’s The Emperor’s New Groove, Encanto brings together both magical realism and traditions of Columbia for a mostly entertaining film that has much smaller stakes than other Disney films due to most of the action happening in one house, but still has the same wonders and magic that one comes to expect from these films.
The background and character animation stands out for giving every member of the Madrigals their own personalities, especially with Mirabel herself and her older sister, Luisa (Jessica Darrow) who might be the most unique character designs that Disney Animation have done in a while, with the latter in particular taking a “strong woman” archetype literally.
Being the second Disney Animated musical to have songs written by Lin-Manuel Miranda after 2016’s Moana, they may not be as memorable as that film, but they all have a fun, upbeat melody that would make this ideal for a double-bill viewing of this and Sony Animation’s Vivo, since that film had Lin as well.
Overall, Encanto is another great achievement for Lin-Manuel Miranda’s ever expanding career and serves as further proof that Jennifer Lee’s run as the head of Walt Disney Animation Studios is off to a great future.
Rating: 4.5/5
41. Zootopia (2016) (Winner of 2016 Best Animated Feature Award)
Directed by: Byron Howard and Rich Moore
Written by: Jared Bush and Phil Johnston
Starring: Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Idris Elba, Jenny Slate, Nate Torrence, Bonnie Hunt, Don Lake, Tommy Chong, J.K. Simmons, Octavia Spencer, Alan Tudyk and Shakira
Music by: Michael Giacchino
Rated: PG
Set in a universe in which mammals have adopted modern lifestyles and abandoned eating others for prey, Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin), a young adult rabbit has moved to Zootopia, a massive city divided into numerous districts for every kind of animal in existence, to become a police officer. After being given a dose of reality from her boss Chief Bogo (Idris Elba) and Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman), a streetsmart con-artist fox, Judy finally gets a chance to prove herself when a string of unexplained predator disappearances occur throughout the city. But with Nick joining her investigation, Judy soon discovers a larger conspiracy that threatens to tear apart Zootopia from within…
Starting with 2009’s The Princess and the Frog, Walt Disney Animation Studios was on a massive road of success throughout the 2010s with Frozen becoming the highest grossing film of 2013, Wreck-it Ralph was a good video game movie in 2012, despite the video game movie sub-genre producing mostly awful results and giving us a nice blend of American and Japanese culture with a superhero formula with 2014’s Big Hero 6.
Zootopia not only managed to continue this streak of good luck, not only by cleverly re-imagining the talking animal concept that Walt Disney Animation Studios have used in films such as Robin Hood and The Rescuers with amazing production design on the city itself and how each animal, not matter how tall or small can each function in this universe, depending on the area where they live, and their own size, but it also delivers a powerful message about prejudice and segregation that was hugely relevant then ever at the time, in spite of the execution of this being flawed.
Although this film is very funny, such as the heavily advertised DMV sloth scene and having numerous parodies to the gangster and film-noir genres, with the best moment coming from a Marlon Brando-esque shrew, this film, is first and foremost a mystery/thriller,with extremely brave twists in the narrative as Judy and Nick discover more details about the mystery and are forced to face harsh truths about both themselves and the city. As mentioned before, the different areas of the city that both characters visit are really well-designed, such as the icy Tundratown, the rodents-only town of Rodentina, the treetop village of the Rainforest District, just to name a few.
Both Goodwin and Bateman do excellent jobs as Judy and Nick, and like most animated duos such as Woody and Buzz, Sully and Mike and Timon and Pumbaa, they work off each other perfectly with Judy using a carrot recording device to keep Nick in check, while he gets them out of trouble with his smart-alec attitude. Idris Elba, Shakira, Jenny Slate and J.K Simmons are also entertaining as numerous supporting characters, with my personal favourite being the donut-crazy, yet lovable police secretary cheetah, Clawhauser (Nate Torrence) due to his high energy, and funny reactions. The only major problem with this film is that, the villain is once again, for the fourth time in a row for Disney Animation, a seemly nice person, who is revealed to be an evil mastermind, as it had become extremely predictable.
Despite this minor problem with the narrative, Zootopia is overall one of the best films of the Disney Revival Era due to its inventive ideas, complex character arcs, and having one of the best morals seen in a family film. This is not just a film that families would love, It’s a film that all families NEED.
Rating: 4.5/5
40. Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015)
Directed by: Mark Burton and Richard Starzak
Written by: Mark Burton and Richard Starzak
Starring: Justin Fletcher, John Sparkes and Omid Djalili
Music by: Ilan Eshkeri
Rated: U
Shaun (Justin Fletcher) is a sheep that lives a boring life with his flock and his Farmer (John Sparkes). When a scheme to get a day off ends up going wrong with the Farmer accidentally ending up lost in The Big City, Shaun, his flock and the long-suffering farm dog, Bitzer (also John Sparkes) embark there to find him. But a sinister animal control officer has other ideas…
Ever since his first appearance in the 1995 Wallace and Gromit short, A Close Shave, Shaun the Sheep over the last two decades, has proven to be one of the most popular characters created by Aardman Animations. From his small cameos in Japanese pudding commercials, his appearance in one of the Cracking Contraptions shorts in 2002, Shopper 13, up to 2007 where he received his own spin-off show, which has been Aardman’s longest running television series with over five seasons produced and in 2015, the same year as his twentieth birthday, he finally received his first film.
Although the plot itself is fairly basic , what makes this story really stand out is that anyone who is familiar with the show would know that in stuff like Wallace and Gromit, or even the Minions movie although silent characters were the focal points, there were still several speaking characters such as Wallace or Scarlet Overkill.
In the universe of the show however, absolutely no-one talks, not even the humans, which makes it not only the most unique films made by Aardman , but in animated films in general, as the characters have to rely on facial expressions and Charlie Chaplin-inspired body language which is not only funny, but also refreshing for people who want a change from exposition-heavy films.
As for the animation, it’s exactly what you’d expect from Aardman, with the city sets looking really impressive, with the stunning combination of models and matte paintings. Most of the characters share the exact same roles as in the series such as Shaun being both the leader and the most clever sheep, Bitzer the dog trying to keep the flock in check, Timmy the lamb being the cute one, Shirley being the fat one and the farmer himself being incredibly funny in a deadpan sort of way, especially through his amnesia subplot.
There are also two new characters which consist of a female abandoned puppy who helps out the flock and Trumper (Omid Djalili) who although serving as an antagonistic animal-trapper, has numerous funny moments as well, with the highlights coming from his weird crush on one of the sheep when the flock disguise themselves as humans.
Overall, it may not be as good as Chicken Run or The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Shaun the Sheep Movie is overall, one of the most charming films of Aardman’s filmography, with silent movie-inspired storytelling, great British humour and a lot of “Sheer” heart, “ewe’ll” have a great time.
Rating: 4.5/5
Chaz’s Cinematic Odyssey 