Review of Early Man (2018) by Dave M — 16 Feb 2018

"Early Man" (PG, 1:29) is an animated adventure comedy. It's a co-production of Britain and France. The movie uses the stop-motion technique and features cave men (and women), and other early humans, with close-set eyes, exaggerated lips and protruding teeth and... well, they're none too bright. The film's mainly about the invention and development of football as a competitive sport (or, soccer, to us Yanks).

It seems that soccer was invented when prehistoric residents of the British Isles started kicking around a lava rock. But the game died out (maybe because kicking around a rock is uncomfortable with bare feet) and the only evidence the game was even played back then are cave paintings, whose cultural significance is lost on the slightly later early man in that area. Eventually, the homeland of these rabbit-hunting stone-age peoples (who now speak English with British accents) is invaded by a more advanced people (who speak English with French accents). These people have discovered and learned the value of bronze and are looking for more of it. Oh, and they enjoy playing/watching soccer in a large arena.

A young Stone Age dreamer named Dug (voiced by Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne) challenges the nearby Bronze Age kingdom, led by the greedy and arrogant Lord Nooth (Tom Hiddleston), to a winner-take-bronze soccer match. If Dug's people win, they get their valley back. If Lord Nooth's people win, they keep the valley and Dug's people become their slaves. That may sound (relatively) fair, except that Lord Nooth's team is a mixture of expert players (with a mixture of French and German accents) and Dug's people are a mixture of unfit, comparatively unsophisticated early men and women who don't even know what soccer is! If the cave men are going to have any chance of winning, Dug is going to have to convince his chief (Timothy Spall) and the rest of his people to let him teach them the little bit of soccer he has picked up from watching the bronze-agers - and get the help of someone from that other kingdom who is skilled, but isn't allowed to play for the kingdom because she's a she (Maisie Williams).

"Early Man" is sometimes clever and occasionally enjoyable, but it's more disturbing than cute and more uninspired than inspiring. The artistic depiction of these early people makes them unnecessarily unattractive and British animators show once again that they're about the only ones left in the industry who find stop-motion animation entertaining enough for a feature film. The story may remind adult Movie Fans of 2004's "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story" and/or 1981's "Victory" (depending on how... long you've been an adult), and with touches of the "Rocky" movies thrown in. Staging the story during that nebulous period between history and prehistory is pretty creative, but the plot itself is unoriginal and few of the characters' clay-mated antics are sufficiently amusing. This movie is agreeable enough, but fairly forgettable and isn't likely to excite big Movie Fans... or little ones. "C+".