Brief thoughts on Early Man.

I absolutely love the work of Aardman Animation, the British stop-motion studio. Like many, I grew up adoring their Wallace and Gromit shorts, and over the years, I've also loved their foray into feature length with films like Chicken Run, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, and Shaun the Sheep. In 2018, what looks to be the next big year of stop motion, they've already given us an early delight in the form of their prehistoric Early Man, a long-gestating passion project for the legendary Nick Park, in his first solo directing credit.

Early Man is a very simple story, in which main hero Dug - voiced by an almost unrecognizable Eddie Redmayne - and his tribe of Stone Age cavemen find their valley invaded by a Bronze Age empire. In order to save their land, and keep his people from becoming slaves within the Bronze mines, Dug challenges the kingdom's star Football players (Football as in Soccer), and decides to train his tribe to prepare them for the uphill battle. It's a simple but inspired idea, that offers the highly idiosyncratic studio to embrace their usual offbeat brand of British quirkiness, but therein also lies a problem with the film. Given what a simple story the film boils down to, the narrative doesn't always flow so smoothly. Humor tends to take more prominence than story progression, with the film finding itself stopping in its tracks to facilitate or extend those comedic segments, pushing all else to the backseat, in a very similar fashion to Shaun the Sheep in retrospect.

But, regardless of how it affects the actual story, that sense of humor that has become synonymous with the studio is still as infectious as ever. Aardman's usual sense of wit, from cleverly placed background details to full on set-pieces, show that they haven't lost their knack for imagination. I almost don't want to describe any of the gags in the film, given that so many of them are best experienced cold, and what mere descriptions I can come up with would not do justice to how side splitting some of them can be. The pure variety on display, with objects and kiosks of the Bronze kingdom decorated with self-aware puns, to more obscure British culture likely to fly over the heads of stateside viewers, is all great stuff. But it's especially the more broad jokes that tend to be the standout moments, from football instant replays portrayed through puppetry, Rob Brydon as a messenger Pigeon chastising Tom Hiddleston with the voice of Miriam Margolyes' Queen, but especially for the recurring appearances of a duck that had me in hysterics every time it showed up.

Speaking of Tom Hiddleston, he is having the time of his life in this movie. He plays the villain of the film, Lord Nooth of the Bronze empire, who is utterly obsessed with the metal and its wealth. Hiddleston plays the character in a relentlessly hammy fashion, speaking in a comical French accent, and acts closer to a spoiled bratty child than to a hardened dictator, as well as incredibly sycophantic to Miriam Margolyes' Queen. He throws himself into the performance with tremendous gusto, embracing his despicable sleaziness and chewing the scenery in a way that had me laughing during almost every scene he features in. His standout bit comes in a side splitting sequence, in which he's unknowingly massaged by Dug's Gromit-esque pet boar Hognob, voiced by director Nick Park, made funnier still with the knowledge that Park was actually massaging Hiddleston while recording his lines.

It's that kind of attention to detail and visual creativity where Park's infectious craft is on its best display, garnering other strong vocal performances from Eddie Redmayne, Maisie Williams as a Bronze Age football fan, and Timothy Spall as the Stone Age tribe leader, who lend a riotous and endearing enthusiasm to the film. And as usual, Aardman's sense of world building is still to be admired, the wide-eyed expressions of their homemade-feeling characters garnering their own laughs and possibly adding more enjoyment to the film with rewatches, but also for the stunning and richly populated production design blended seamlessly with CGI enhancements. So while it may not be the finest example of the studio's abilities, it's yet another reminder of just what creative and reliable talents they are, and have always been. This is absolutely joyous.


**** / *****