Early Man

2017 animated feature

Rating: 12/20

Plot: The Bronze Age collides with the Stone Age, and a soccer match ensues.

Despite my love for everything Aardman Animations has ever done, I wasn't all that excited going into this one. Cavemen had already been done with The Croods, and the second preview I saw made it seem like the type of movie that has been written again and again. Nevertheless, I kept the faith. And if I had just gone into this wanting the clever stop-motion animation, the terrible puns, the grotesque human caricatures, the anthropomorphized animals, and the slightly-askew humor that you can expect with Aardman, I would have been pleased.

But the storytelling is so derivative here. The beats are predictable. As soon as one character is introduced, you know exactly how that character will factor into the story later. As soon as one character is being underrated, you know exactly what character will end up doing later. As soon as one bit of dialogue is shared, you know exactly how the end of the big climactic soccer match will go.

Is it a spoiler to tell you that everything in a movie is predictable? It probably is. I apologize.

These Aardman movies work when they throw the unexpected at you. Their blend of charming animated characters and unpredictability work so well in Chicken Run, Wallace and Gromit, and the Shaun the Sheep movie. Here, there are still a few laughs and a few likable characters and a few really beautiful animated sequences that put a smile on my face. But that unpredictability is completely gone and replaced with something almost offensively generic.

There were only five people in the theater with me for this one, and they were all adults. One couple, a lonely person, another lonely person, and me.