Review of Early Man (2018) by Joseph D — 17 Feb 2018

Finally. The debates will be settled: is clay-mation still a valid medium? & which is truly better; stone, or bronze?

EARLY MAN.

At just under 1 & a half hours, this film feels longer, because it takes the time needed to tell the whole story, not just throwing out plot points at a break-neck pace. But to be fair, the film could've done with some shoring up in a couple places.

The cast was great. Our stone age heroes are a motley crew of folks with...I'm guessing...exaggerated British quirks; they were simple, but endearing. The villains were a classic case of upper crust thinking, they saw themselves as more evolved, & therefore allowed to treat the primitives as animals (obvious historical context is obvious). The cave people & bronze tribe were also distinctly British & French accented respectively (obvious British nationalism is obvious). But the one thing they had in common, was the ability to admit faults & change...well, most of them...(no spoilers).

The humor was...mixed for me. I'm guessing it was Brit-centric, so most of it kinda went over my head, but I was entertained enough. My focus was on the "human" drama & the visuals; which both delivered in spades.

And speaking of the visuals. O...M...G. They're almost as good as, if not better than, Kubo & the Two Strings! The surroundings were so solid & immersive, the characters not only looked fairly alive, but their performance almost made me think the voice actors were actually there in costume! This film should get a stop-motion award, & if there was any CGI, it was barely noticeable.

The music was mostly there for punctuation, it served it's purpose.

Early Man is a bit of British silliness that, while it may never be a timeless classic, it did score a few goals with me & gets a respectable 3 stars out've 5.