Within the first minute of Aardman’s latest feature, there
is a shot featuring a shop named Milliway’s. Thirty seconds after that, a sign
for H.G. Wheel’s Auto. This sets the pace for the 87 minutes to follow, as the
studio’s usual penchant for visual gags, both foreground and background, takes
on a rather niche dimension, filling pretty much every moment with some form of
tribute or reference to the older sci-fi canon. This seriously makes Ready
Player One look like amateur hour for films designed to make film nerds look
through every frame with a fine-toothed comb, and it certainly got me more
attentive than usual to spot as many as I could.
From that immediate acknowledgement of the genre this film
sits in, it honestly isn’t nearly as spoofy as all that film trivia would have
us believe. Instead, it follows the methodology of those sight gags, in that
the only real change between this and the first Shaun The Sheep movie is the
genre focus. Well, that and a noticeable lack of toilet humour, but since that
seems to have been done just to squeeze in more references to Alien and Logan’s
Run, I’m in no state to complain about that.
From the good-natured slapstick to
the tightly-formed pacing to the reliance on visuals over anything resembling
dialogue to tell the story, it does everything that made the first film work
and even gives it a bit of an upgrade. In terms of sheer comedic value, this is
going to set the precedent for the next year’s worth of cinema, as I was pretty
much giggling for the entire running time.
As for the story itself, it’s a fairly standard ‘space child
stranded on Earth’ narrative, with the embarrassingly cute Lu-La working with
the titular sheep and his flock to get back home. Lu-La herself ends up
introducing the closest these films have gotten so far to intelligible human
speech with its occasional declarations of ‘zoom-zoom’, almost like this whole
thing is a Mazda commercial in the making. However, more so than the marketing
potential behind this, knowing that this shares a writer not only with the
original Shaun movie but also the remarkably scathing Early Man, part of me
wonders if there’s a bigger meaning behind having a literal alien who has a
better grasp of English than the actual population of England. Wouldn’t be the
first time this studio has gone for Brexit-era analysis, after all.
But that’s just my usual thematic twiddling; I don’t need to
try that hard to find emotional engagement in this thing, and it’s here
where the emphasis on visual storytelling really hits the high notes.
In-between the schemings of the Farmer and his prospective alien-themed
amusement park that gives the film its subtitle, and the depiction of the
Ministry of Alien Detection who are all so incompetent you almost feel sorry
for them, the film’s emotional impact is frankly bizarre in how hard-hitting it
is. Everyone from the series regulars to the introduction of Lu-La, even the
M.A.D’s leader Agent Red, end up getting their moment in the spotlight to
create some seriously palpable tear-jerkers. It’s almost unfair how weepy it’s
possible to get with this movie, considering the simplicity of the story along
with, again, how reliant that impact is on the visuals.
This is basically a film that focuses on what it’s good at
and squeezes it for everything it’s worth, making everything from the laughs to
the surprisingly poignant moments register with equal punch. And as far as
Aardman’s usual animated trappings, this might even find the studio reaching
new heights, as these are easily some of the most densely-packed and plentiful
background gags they’ve ever employed. It’s a family film that serves as a
healthy reminder of what the raw art of animation is truly capable of, and
whether you’re a young’in or an initially-begrudging parent (or just a compulsive
completionist like myself), chances are you’ll find plenty to like about this
one.
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