Going to the Pictures (X) - Early Man

After a lot of arsing about, we’ve finally got back down the pictures this week. We saw:

Early Man (30th January 2018)

An Aardman animation film, this heart-warming tale of allegedly Stone Age people fighting a war in the shape of a football match (as in, a UK football match) against allegedly Bronze Age people was in turns very funny and a lot of fun. This is not historically accurate and has no intention of being: part of the opening shows dinosaurs and people right next to each other, for example. But hey, this is here just for the puns and it shows. I’m not kidding - pay attention to the names of the football players, the shop fronts in the Bronze Age village, and one of the most contrived but also most fun uses of the word ‘balls’ I’ve heard in a while.

Voices were spot-on - Timothy Spall as the ‘old man’ (“I’m 32! I’m ancient!”), Eddy Redmayne as Dug, Maisie Williams as Goona (yes, Goona!), Tom Hiddleston as the dastardly Lord Nooth (with his most hilarious French accent), Rob Brydon playing nearly every other voice (his commentators were comedy gold), and even Miriam Margoyles in a show-stopping role.

The music was uplifting and fun, the sidekick Hognob (not to be confused with a biscuit) was ace and I have to admit I never get tired of watching stop-motion of this quality. It may have turned out predictable toward the end, but to be honest it was so much fun I really didn’t mind.

Verdict: 8/10; kids will love this, adults will smile or chuckle all the way through, and it’ll make you want to go outside and kick a ball.

That’s it for this round - more coming next week.

Soopy twist.