Shaun the Sheep Movie

A British ‘claymation’ animated film from Mark Burton and Richard Starzak, Shaun the Sheep Movie is far more entertaining, imaginative and life-affirming than The Good Dinosaur, even without a single word of dialogue.

Shaun, the sheep in question, sees an ad on the side of a bus and decides it’s time for a break from the boring daily routine on the farm. So he hatches a complex plot to take the Farmer out of the picture for awhile. But things get out of hand very quickly, the Farmer wakes up to find himself in the Big City with no memory of how he got there or who he is, and suddenly all of the Farmer’s sheep are in the Big City, hunting for the Farmer (without whom the farm animals are not as happy as they thought they would be). 

It’s amazing how detailed a story you can tell without any dialogue. And it’s all great fun, with beautiful animation, a clever story and some wise things to say about the fast-paced life in all of our cities today, not to mention our obsession with ‘celebrity’. 

I’m a big fan of dialogue, and there were times when I thought Shaun the Sheep Movie was a little too light and silly for me. I was also disappointed that there was no attempt to redeem the film’s baddie, which a film like this could have done so easily. So I’m not going to give Shaun the Sheep Movie more than ***+, but I recommend it to absolutely everybody. My mug is up.