Shaun, o Carneiro: O Filme

I am a grown male and got the timings wrong to see The Interview and could not be bothered to wait for the next screening so I selected the next film starting.

I have never seen the series, so cant judge if this is a good or bad adaptation all I can say this is a truly funny film though aimed at children is funny enough to keep me entertained.

The animation is uniformly excellent and honestly kept me guessing from the start to the end whether it was CGI or stop motion, I am still not sure even after reading all the credits. Maybe I didn't read them properly because the theme tune is very catchy and bounces round the head even now.

The story is easy to follow, the characters are likable and there is no trite wince inducing dialogue, everything is mumbled by the humans and the sheep communicate in a variations of bahs. There are some cracking running gags and a smattering of fart jokes. The sheep in disguise have to be seen to believed and the viewer would be surprised what goes on with a horse.

The closing credits though long are a fun roll with a funny bit at the end.

Watch it. I bet The Interview wont be as much fun.

This was, for me anyway, the usual Saturday afternoon flick with my partner and son to pass an hour or two.

To be honest could have been any movie.

The movie started sedately enough but gathered pace and complexity with every minute ,throughout the audience was laughing out loud , adults and children alike (including me).

It had everything for kids and adults, some rude jokes, great references to adult movies. A multi-layered villain, heroes and comedic characters.

The animation was stunning but i stopped looking at the animation and got hooked on the story and characters, maybe that's the way it should be.

Definitely worth a hour or so of anybody's time.

I considered Aardmans last stop motion effort 'Pirates - in an adventures with scientists' to be a bit of a let down when it was released three years ago and wondered if they had gone off the boil a little bit by trying to appeal to the mass market and thus diluting their witty humour as a result. However after 80 odd minutes of Shaun the Sheep I am happy to report that they are back on track.

Shaun is extremely well animated and manages to keep the story ticking along and funny enough to keep your interest without really feeling stretched. Considering as the film has no real dialogue to speak of that is no mean feat, and is reliant on top notch production design, expressive animation and a script that is entertaining and funny without being overly ridiculous. Whilst the Shaun the Sheep/Timmy Time TV shorts are aimed at young viewers, there is a decent amount of underlying humour here that adults will also engage with and thus it doesn't insult your intelligence the way some films do.

After Aardmans infamous falling out with DreamWorks (who wanted them to Americanize Wallace & Gromit) I did wonder if Aardman had sold out for the mass market after feeling the Sony Pictures distributed Pirates had a whiff of compromise to it, and that's partly why I felt Pirates fell a bit flat. However Aardman have teamed up with an independent European distributor for Shaun and as a result it seems they were allowed to make the film they wanted to make this time round. In effect I was not disappointed with Shaun, the simple but hilarious premise of the TV show is expanded successfully to the big screen with no noticeable compromises for the mass market. That the film is also dialogue free should make it an easy sell abroad too and I'm glad to see the film has been well received.

So well done to Aardman for making one of 2015's most enjoyable, entertaining and amusing films so far.

For a while, I've held a belief that Aardman can do no wrong, and thankfully this latest example has kept up that belief and then some. It's actually rather difficult to write a review of this movie, because there's not a whole lot one can actually comment on. For instance, I can't say anything about voice acting, or script, because there is literally no dialogue. I mean, there are voice actors (for example Omid Djalili as Tramper the villain) but all they do is mumble (and in the case of the sheep actors, bleat) and stuff. I suppose this, then, serves as a testament to the sheer quality of Aardman's animation. In addition to it being fantastic that claymation can still find its way onto the screen today, it's also brilliant that such a film has found such capable animators; the animation is beautiful, and though you may think they may not be able to convey so much emotion with just facial expressions and mumbles, lo and behold, they do; from glee, to terror, to sadness, to panic, and many more, the characters they've created are absolutely brimming with emotion, and immensely watchable at the same time, and that just makes this movie all the more effective. Lack of a proper script also doesn't seem to trouble Aardman either; this movie is really goddamn funny. The physical comedy sequences, the highlight of which has to be the gleefully chaotic scene in a restaurant, are done to a tee, quite possibly the best Aardman has done them since Flushed Away, while Aardman's trademark sight gags, though not quite as strong as they were in previous offering The Pirates! (the Brian Blessed gag comes to mind), are ever-present and really quite amusing, however obvious or subtle they may be (for instance, "The Big City - twinned with Le Grande Ville, La Ciudad Grande"). My main gripe was that towards the end, which I won't spoil, things do get a bit too cheesy for my tastes, but the rest of the movie, and indeed most of the climactic sequences, more than make up for that. Shaun The Sheep: The Movie only serves to reinforce why I am such a huge fan of the Bristol lads to begin with, and while it is nowhere near as good as their first two features, it is definitely a worthy addition to their fine repertoire of work. If you're looking for some great entertainment on an afternoon, you could do a lot worse than this.

13 February 2015 Film of Choice at The Plaza Dorchester This Aftenoon - Shaun The Sheep. I would just like to point out that I was the only adult there without a child.....or maybe I was the only child without an adult!!!!!! Nick Park and his team have done it again. This was classic Aardman animation, with our old pal Shaun. Bored with his mundane life Shaun and his sheepy friends engineer a way to have a day off but all goes drastically wrong when the farmer ends up in the big city with memory loss. It's up to the animals to save him and what follows is a madcap series of events where nobody questions sheep dressed as humans or any of the antics that occur. Completely without dialogue the story is carried along by the excellent score and gesticulations and a gaggle of bleats, grunts and other indiscriminate noises. As we know animation these days caters for all ages and with various movie references included the adults were definitely laughing at different times to the children. Watching some good old stop motion animation is a very pleasant way to pass the time.