Film Review: "Early Man" (2018).

"From the award winning tribe behind Chicken Run and Wallace & Gromit" comes Early Man. This British stop-motion animated film directed by Nick Park, written by Mark Burton and James Higginson, and produced by Aardman Animations. A plucky cave man named Dug, his sidekick Hognob and the rest of their tribe face a grave threat to their simple existence. Lord Nooth plans to take over their land and transform it into a giant mine, forcing Dug and his clan to dig for precious metals. Not ready to go down without a fight, Dug and Hognob must unite their people in an epic quest to defeat a mighty enemy - the Bronze Age.

In June 2007, one of the two additional films were announced by Aardman, appropriately joked as an untitled Nick Park film, which is not another Wallace & Gromit feature film. In 2015, it was announced that the title of the film would be Early Man-United and it would financed by the British Film Institute for $50 million. Eventually, the title was changed to Early Man. The film marks Park's thirteen-year return to the director's chair, and marks the first feature that Park as the sole director. On Chicken Run (2000), with Peter Lord, and The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005), with Steve Box. As with previous stop motion films created by Aardman, the characters in Early Man were developed over time with the voice actors to determine the way the characters look, move, and speak. The results were turned over to the film's 35 animators to work on individualizing the characters. A crowd of people took part in an audio recording at the Memorial Stadium Home of Bristol Rovers.

The film features the voice talents of Eddie Redmayne, Tom Hiddleston, Maisie Williams, Timothy Spall, Miriam Margolyes, Richard Ayoade, and Mark Williams. The film is brilliantly voiced across the board. The cast gave comically-injected performances with corniness sprinkled throughout. The kind that you would expect from an Aardman film.

Early Man has all the charm of Nick Park's Wallace & Gromit, and something for everybody. The voice acting is fabulous, the slapstick is brilliant, and the action sequences are spectacular. Even without Wallace and Gromit, most of the trademark joys are here: the compound of squashy creatures and heavy machinery, the wide, open-ended rictus of a toothy smile, and the great Parkian gulp. It coaxes you to laugh and cry, flatters your intelligence, and practically guarantees a cheap night out: at dinner afterward, no one's going to be ordering anything but salad. What gives this movie its oddly strong grip on a viewer's heart is a physical tenderness inseparable from the nature of claymation. Like Wallace & Gromit, it's a paean to British eccentricity, equal parts cluelessness and hopefulness, full of English slang and dry Brit humor. The film contains some gorgeous, destined-to-be-classic set pieces, and this is where the Aardman production team flex their animation muscles. It's a warm-hearted and amusing entertainment that families will enjoy.

Simon says Early Man receives:

Also, see my review for The Pirates! Band of Misfits.