Early Man - Review

Long live the age of claymation.



By Daniel Epler

Early Man is the latest animated feature from Aardman Animations, the company behind hits like Chicken Run and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. It is directed by Nick Park, the director of those same movies. I enjoy their films, especially Were-Rabbit, but have never truly loved any. I fall in the same boat with this latest one.

The film is about a tribe of people in the stone age who clash head to head with the leader of the now rising city of the Bronze Age, Lord Nooth (Tom Hiddleston). When Nooth casts the tribe out of their home land to mine for bronze, a spunky young caveman named Dug (Eddie Redmayne) challenges the people of the bronze age to a game of football (soccer) to win their land back.

The greatest strength of Early Man is it's animation. This is a gorgeous movie that I absolutely marveled looking at. No matter how many times I see it, I don't think I'll ever get numb to the charms of claymation. It is incredible what these animators are able to accomplish! And the environments of the film really lend to beautiful shots. Between the lush green land and the bronze city, the animation is really able to shine.

I also really liked the lead characters. Dug and his friend he met in the city, Goona, are very likable heroes. I also found Tom Hiddleston as Lord Nooth very funny. There is a sequence where Dug's pet boar has to pose as Nooth's personal massage therapist that had me in stitches. Most of the laughs in this movie work, to varying degrees. I was charmed by the humor.

I had no idea going into this that is was a sports movie. Turns out, it totally is. I found that to lead to some of the film's weaknesses. There are training scenes of people explaining basic football (soccer) to each other that were too long and too uninteresting. These scenes also most heavily feature the secondary characters in the tribe, who I found to be a little too "dumb" for the sake of comedy. I really like the lead characters. I wasn't crazy about these supporting players.

However, the end game that every sports movie has turned out to be very entertaining. All in all, I really enjoyed Early Man, but I doubt I'll be more likely to revisit it than the rest of the studio's filmography.

3/5 Stars