Early Man Review
PG: rude humor and some action
Summit Entertainment, StudioCanal, Aardman Animation
1 Hr and 29 Minutes
Dir: Nick Park | Writers: Mark Burton, James Higginson
Voice Cast: Eddie Redmayne, Tom Hiddleston, Maisie Williams, Timothy Spall, Richard Ayoade
INTRO: Aardman Animations, a studio without a single stain in their filmography might have finally wet the bed.
Set at the dawn of time, when prehistoric creatures and woolly mammoths roamed the earth, Early Man tells the story of Dug, along with sidekick Hognob as they unite his tribe against a mighty enemy Lord Nooth and his Bronze Age City to save their home.
THE GOOD
When it comes to delivering humorous visual gags, Aardman is one of the best-animated studios in the business. The film opens with a hysterical visual gag that sets the bar of what to expect from the humor. It still proves that Aardman still has a ton of creativity up their sleeve. The studio’s distinctive designs and style are present where they look like your typical Aardman character with small eyes and big teeth. In a time where nearly every theatrical animated release is a computer-generated film, it's great to see Aardman putting their hard work with their claymation. The clothing is made from scratch, and the characters are made from scratch. While watching the film on the big screen, you can see the fingerprints of the clay that crafted the characters.
THE BAD
With “Early Man” being the first film from director Nick Park since 2005’s “Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit,” he does a great job maintaining the loving charm, the studio bears. Unfortunately, since it has been his first film in over a decade and this is a passion project of his that has been in development for years, this needed at least one more storyboard/script overview before they moved onto the crafting phase.
It doesn't have the sharp wit and consistent humor of any of their previous releases. It has the creativity, but the jokes don’t have enough brain power to compensate for the generic plot. Yeah the premise is fun, but the narrative beats follow every essential plot point in every underdog story.
Where other films had laugh out loud humor, this can’t even get past a chuckle. "Early Man" is the first project from the studio after “Shaun the Sheep Movie” which was personally the most groundbreaking film Aardman has ever done. It was a perfect family film that had the perfect balance between story and humor while maintaining being a silent film in an age where completely silent movies are obsolete.
Unfortunately with “Early Man,” a lot of elements follow the same type of humor that I can’t stand from American CG animated films where characters are constantly screaming, running gags are run into the ground, and characters aren’t so memorable. This is an underdog story that is as basic as every underdog story. The story plays like a Flinstones episode over than an Aardman movie and its very disappointing. Honestly it makes me appreciate Dreamworks’ “The Croods” more than this. What “Croods” lacked in story, it made up for in heart and its visuals. “Early Man” on the other hand just really have the visuals, and that's it. It has its charming moments and means well but in the end, you expect much more from the studio that are known for making sophisticated gem after gem. This is as of a dud to Aardman as “The Good Dinosaur” was a dud to Pixar; they had the animation but the narrative was just way too mediocre for its own good.
LAST STATEMENT
It has the distinctive and beautifully crafted style as their previous releases but “Early Man” features a narrative that is way too mediocre for the studio that spent way too hard crafting it.
Rating: 3/5 | 61%
uper Scene: Message Bird.
