By Dan Skip Allen

British comedies can be a mixed bag. Sometimes you get “The Full Monty”, “Waking Ned Devine” and “A Fish Called Wanda” and other times, you get “Casino Royale”, not the Daniel Craig Bond film, the bad one starring George Lesenby, “Kevin & Perry Go Large” and “Carry on Columbus”, based on the Carry On Series. “The Sheep Detectives “ is somewhere in the middle. It’s not bad, but it’s not great either. It’s a cute little murder mystery for the whole family. The adults will get a kick out of the comedy aspects, and the kids will enjoy all of the talking sheep and their crazy antics. That’s as much as I can say that won’t spoil too much of the surprises in it. I think it’s better left that way so the audience can enjoy it more.

George Hardy (Hugh Jackman)is a mild-mannered sheep farmer, shepherd if you will, in the small town of Denbrook, which is a fictional town, in England. He gives all his sheep names and reads murder mysteries at night to them. He even tends to their wounds using his patented formula. He loves these animals more than people if that can be believed. One morning, when the sheep see him lying in the field outside his house, they think he’s playing a game, but in fact, he is really dead. This causes a stir in the small community of Denbrook, but when a young woman, Rebecca Hamstead (Molly Gordon) and a lawyer, Lydia Harbottle (Emma Thompson) show up claiming he had a will, this complicates matters. Now, everyone in the town is a suspect.

This film has a huge cast, and most of them are Suspects in the murder of the Jackman character. Let’s start first with the man who has another flock of sheep in the field next to Jackman’s character, and that’s Caleb (Tosin Cole). He wants both fields and has made a deal with the local butcher Ham (Conlith Hill) to make money off these animals. Officer Tim Derry (Nicholas Braun) is the man in charge of the investigation, and he may be over his head if it weren’t for some furry friends who help him with the clues. Braun takes a turn from his more serious role in “Succession” to be this bumbling law enforcement officer. Elliot Matthews (Nicholas Gilitzine) plays a reporter who is looking for a scoop. The biggest part of the cast is all of the A-list British celebrities that voice all of the talking sheep. Sir Richfield (Patrick Stewart), two Norfolk Horn sheep brothers Reggie and Ronnie (Bret Goldstein), Lilly (Julia-Louie Dreyfus), Mopple (Chris O’Dowd), Wool Eyes (Rhys Darby) and Zora (Bella Ramsey). This cast is fantastic, and I haven’t even named everybody in the film. 

This movie isn’t to be taken seriously by any means. It’s based on the 2005 novel, “Three Bags Full”  by Leonie Swann. It’s a fun comedy with talking animals that speak, but humans can’t understand them. The animals are the only ones who can understand each other similar in tone to “Babe.” A widely popular children’s film from the mid-90s that transcended popular culture by becoming an awards contender. It was a movie that the entire family could love, just like this one. They have similar vibes to them but different plot devices to get the viewers to follow along with them. Jackman’s character is like the Cromwell character in the fact that they are both forms of farmers. The small town aspect is a lot like “Babe” as well. “The Sheep Detectives” could be described as this generation’s “Babe”. That can be genuinely considered. 

With a film featuring talking animals, you have to take the form of how they are able to talk into consideration. This movie takes the tried and true formula of computer animation to animate the animals and give them voice-over performers to speak for them. Instead of moving mouths or hand drawn animation interacting with human characters. If I didn’t know the animals with animation, I could have sworn they were real sheep. That’s how realistic they looked. This is some of the best computer animation I’ve seen in recent years. That’s how real these sheep looked to me.That’s a testament to how good the work was on these characters. Amazon/MGM spared no expense on making these characters look so real.

The director Kyle Balda is best known for working with Illumination co-directing films in the “Minions” and “Despicable Me” franchises before moving on to Pixar. That’s a different kind of animation than the one he’s doing here with his solo directorial debut. Cartoonist characters are different beasts than life like sheep are. He did a terrific job combining human characters with a lot of computer animated sheep. It was a seamless transition.  It’s rare that you see these two visual styles work so well together. After this, hopefully, it’s received well, I would love to see what other kinds of animation/live action stuff he can do. Maybe he could work on a video game adaptation. 

“The Sheep Detectives” was a fun film for the entire family. As an adult, I enjoyed the mystery/murder aspects of the story. The comedy was another big part of why I liked this movie. The kids will definitely love the talking sheep and the adventures they get into. The combination of live action and computer animation was seamlessly done by the director Balda. His career up to this point led him to make this family-friendly mashup that had the feel of “Babe” from 1995 all over it. It’s a new generation’s “Babe”. I feel confident in saying that. The cast from live action actors to voice over actors were all amazing. I hope this movie finds the audience it deserves because it was a wonderful movie for all ages.

4 stars