Review of Early Man (2018) by Frame R — 28 Mar 2018

Chicken Run was about Auschwitz, this one is about soccer... tell me more...

EARLY MAN.

I believe stop-motion animation to be the purest form of cinema, the height of what a movie can be to me. Nick Park has been a master at it and all of his work, from Chicken Run, to all Wallace & Gromit stuff and Creature Comforts are some of the best examples of what cinema as an art can offer me. However, Nick fumbled the ball with this one as he shows less originality and thought than any time before. Also, a fact that may have factored in my consideration of the movie is that I find football utterly dull. Unfortunately, I live in a country where football is a pseudo-religion, where one of the first things that you're asked is your favourite team and one in which soccer-mania is elevated to an extreme. I attribute this to a pure cultural phenomenon because soccer obviously isn't the most exciting sport (it's one of the few games where both teams not scoring a single point is a natural occurrence). So I admit to be biased, as the movie has to be incredible to truly catch my attention when you throw soccer in the mix. And when the whole 25minute third act is playing the most humdrum sport in the world, it's natural that I get disinterested. But, as I say, you could make a film about painting a side walk green and still make it fascinating, it's about your eye and the ability to tell the story (it's not the story, it's how you tell it). Therefore, I think that there are many flaws this time around in the storytelling, not necessarily so much in the storyboard but in the screenplay. Maybe the best thing about Chicken Run and Wallace & Gromit is its commitment to developing characters. Look at Gromit, who is so fleshed out that he doesn't need to speak for you to realize what he's thinking. Here, all the characters are absolutely flat, they have one note and then they go way. Not even our hero is redeemable, failing to engage. I think the film has a great pace, it's stunning and it's very funny throughout but it lacks the authenticity that Aardman is known for. When you play ball, sometimes you have a ball, other times you're stuck with blue ones.