I Watch Films: Early Man
I’ve seen a few vanity football films, for example Sean Bean in When Saturday Comes, Dennis Waterman’s idiosyncratic The World Cup: A Captain’s Tale. I’d not paid attention to the promotion for Early Man, the Nick Park Aardman Animations stop-motion project, so until I went with a four year old co-reviewer I did not realise that it was a football film.
The cavemen live in an idyllic valley in the centre of the badlands. Unfortunately the bronze age arrives, and it turns out that there is bronze* under the valley. Due to an unlikely series of events, if the cavemen can defeat Real Bronzio at football they can get their valley back.
It’s cute and charming and has some good visual jokes, and a fair few actually funny gags. It is in love with football. Like most of the Aardman feature lengths, it just about manages to fill its running time without feeling padded, yet never quite seems to need the space and effects of the big screen.
The four year old enjoyed himself, occasionally shouting out when something funny happened on screen. He liked the pig.
Watch This: For an entertaining historically-inaccurate football related comedy plasticine film.
Don’t Watch This: If broad humour, Aardman’s visual style, football films or bad history put you off.
Just For Once: This is still in the cinema, rather than being months or years later like my regular reviews.
* It is beside the point to note that that is not how bronze works.
The cavemen live in an idyllic valley in the centre of the badlands. Unfortunately the bronze age arrives, and it turns out that there is bronze* under the valley. Due to an unlikely series of events, if the cavemen can defeat Real Bronzio at football they can get their valley back.
It’s cute and charming and has some good visual jokes, and a fair few actually funny gags. It is in love with football. Like most of the Aardman feature lengths, it just about manages to fill its running time without feeling padded, yet never quite seems to need the space and effects of the big screen.
The four year old enjoyed himself, occasionally shouting out when something funny happened on screen. He liked the pig.
Watch This: For an entertaining historically-inaccurate football related comedy plasticine film.
Don’t Watch This: If broad humour, Aardman’s visual style, football films or bad history put you off.
Just For Once: This is still in the cinema, rather than being months or years later like my regular reviews.
* It is beside the point to note that that is not how bronze works.
Comments