We've seen many animated films for a plethora of years, and as well crafted as they are, it's refreshing to see a film that's created in the Claymation style. These types of animated flicks aren't released too often--they take a while to make, so when they come our way, it becomes a real treat to see them. When I saw my first trailer of "Early Man" I figured I had to see that film considering its Claymation format.
A plucky caveman named Dug (Eddie Redmayne), his sidekick Hognob (Nick Park), Chief Bobnar (Timothy Spall) and the rest of their tribe face a grave threat to their simple existence. Lord Nooth (Tom Hiddleston) plans to take over their land and transform it into a giant mine, forcing Dug and his clan to dig for precious metals. So Dug subsequently challenges Lord Nooth and his men to a football game or soccer game to win back his land. Because of Dug's clans' incapability of the game, he seeks out Goona (Maisie Williams) to teach the mastery of the game. Not ready to go down without a fight, Dug, Hognob, Goona and the Chief must unite their people in an epic quest to defeat a mighty enemy-- the Bronze Age.
Others to round out the cast are Richard Ayoade as Treebor, Miriam Margolyes as Queen Oofeefa, Mark Williams as Barry, Rob Brydon as Message Bird/Brian/Bryan, Johnny Vegas as Asbo, Kayvan Novak as Dino and Selina Griffiths as Magma.
This was creatively directed by the king of Claymation Nick Park ("Chicken Run" 2000, "The Curse of the Were-Rabbit" '05) plus videos and shorts. This filmmaker knows how to extract the most effective emotion from his actors. The humor is dry and so the characters used truly accentuate the effectiveness of entertaining its audience. It was dryly written by Mark Burton ("Madagascar" '05, "The Curse of the Were-Rabbit" '05, "Aliens in the Attic" '09, "Shaun the Sheep Movie" '15) and James Higginson, based on a story by Burton and Nick Park. As with this writer's previous films, the writing is dry, humorous, entertaining all with a well thought out script. Even though the storyline here has been done before--underdogs becoming a team in order to save something, this wring is executed in a way that proves once again that determination, perseverance and patience pays off in huge ways. And what can I say for the animation? Claymation is a painstakingly tedious process that takes a true team of incredibly talented artists that have a tremendous amount of patience in order to produce a final product. Aardman Studios is amazingly talented and the company behind numerous Claymation productions.
If Claymation is your desire when it comes to the genre of animation, you will be in heaven, however if it's not, the creative script along with the spot on direction and funny, interesting characters will surely be enough to justify the price of admission. This is funny, entertaining, artfully done all with a great message that we've heard before--we all need to be a team in order to connect, but even if we've heard this before, so much of the time we need to be reminded.
Out of 4 Stars: 4 Rated: PG 89mins.
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