By: Keaton Marcus

Genre/Kids and Family

Age Rating/5+

Lemonradar/53% sour

Introduction

Hello, this is Keaton Marcus from Sweet and Sour Movie Reviews and today I will be reviewing the new animation film Early Man. A caveman named Doug wants something more in life to just rabbit hunting, but just when they are about to switch it up a bit the Bronze take the Caveman's valley and banishes them out into the Badlands, Doug (Eddie Redmayne) challenges Lord Nooth (Tom Hiddleston) to a sacred match of football to determine whether the tribe will take the valley back or will be banished forever.

How Was The Cast?

They really do not tend to have the greatest superstars play in these kinds of animation films which may be good or bad, but this was the first real star powered animation movie from the team of Wallace and Gromit. We have Eddie Redmayne taking on the main role as Doug the caveman and rabbit hunter. I really thought this was very unusual for him coming after Fantastic Beasts, Les Miserables, Jupiter Ascending and The Danish Girl, but who am I to judge Mr. Redmayne was actually quite good combining his good charm from his previous films and making it fun for kids and… some adults and also giving him a chance to go out of his real comfort zone and really his first animated movie, I mean it aint the best, but it is a solid start to hopefully many Redmayne animated movies to come. Then we got Tom Hiddleston also making his debut in animated movies. Okay here we go again, completely random on why you would pick Hiddleston for this kind of role looking at his recent movies, Kong: Skull Island, Thor: Ragnarok, The Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron, as you can see he is a really big-budget Marvel movie kid of guy, but does he have the guts to try out this very new character for his taste, well I thought that for a guy that lost his marbles about trying this movie, he was quite enjoyable as the villainous Lord Nooth, funny, charming and really quite solid for the type of guy who stars in Live-Action films and for a debuting animated movie star. Finally we have the young movie star Maisie Williams who made her big debut in Game of Thrones. REALLY DIRECTOR, another actor that really does not belong in this film, come on you do not want to put a Game of Thrones star into an average animation movie, what the hell; Okay she was not the worst of the worst, but she really did have some really shaky, uneven and distraught scenes that tumbled her down quite a bit, choppy narrative and nowhere near her comfort zone. On the whole the cast was crazy, there were many ups and downs Eddie Redmayne with his challenges and positives, Tom Hiddleston with his Marvel geekiness and Maisie Williams with her Game of Thrones, but overall the cast was not half bad creating a average diversion for younger kids.

Quality

Here we go, the real paragraph of the review, now we can judge the overall quality provided in this film starting off with the directing by Nick Park. I really thought though there were several funny scenes that were decently directed Mr. Park really was slumming it, I mean coming after the amazing Wallace and Gromit Franchise, Chicken Run and the new critically acclaimed Shaun the Sheep Movie, really just the best animated movies of all time, so tell me if you see those awesome films and think Early Man is one of them you really picked wrong, I know before I said that this was a decent movie; But certainly not for the great director of those acclaimed films, the story and plot were simple and thin, the cast was mostly wobbly and the movie lacked any real smarts to make such a movie to compare to his previous films. Now we have the amazing animation effects that shined in this average movie. Being the strongest point in the film the creative style of animation that the team has been using for years has never been so fine looking in this film, this is a good thing and a bad thing; Bad because this means the great animation and visuals take up more space than the smarts in the film making it a drop down against other movies in this style, however it is quite decent because it still means that this team really cannot go more imaginative than this, really the animation was still dazzling, but it took over too much of the movie. Now we come to the real smarts in the movie, how was the plot, story and overall creation of the movie. As I explained before, the plot and storylines for Park’s previous animation movies were amazing and really helped the film get all it’s amazing reviews, but this one you have to think once or twice about the quality, I imagined coming into the theatre that obviously you would get the cool visuals and the key story, but I left the theatre with disappointment on that particular section, the plot was too simple, the story was almost incomprehensible and really if the director was not Nick Park you would say, ‘oh, this is actually a decent kids diversion’; But since you know that Park is behind the movie, you think that Mr. Park has now made his by far worst film of his lifetime compared to his previous career. On the whole as you can see the quality was quite in the middle with dazzling visuals, simple plot, wobbly cast and so-so directing, now based on the information the movie should end up from about 60-70%, so between that makes my final score 65% sweet and sour.

Aging ‘The Bronze Age’

Now we got the final paragraph on our hands which is really judging if this new Nick Park animation movie is right for your kids or not. We have to start with the violence, even though there is some cartoonish violence and mentions of scary tyrants this movie is not do different from other Mr. Park movies although if you think your kid has not handled such topics maybe it is best to play a nice Pixar movie, however most 5 year olds and up have seen his previous movies even though there is some mild scares and funny, small action sequences. Next up we have any adult situations or sexuality in the film. Like other kids films there is almost no such thing even though there are countless flirts in Early Man which will go by any kids head. The bad language in the movie was also quite mild with maybe some rude humor with uses of brute, stupid and phrases including idiot; But really nothing over the top like some kids films do. On the whole if you look through the paragraph you may see there is some cartoonish, prehistoric action sequences, some flirting and rude humor, mostly Early Man takes it like other premature animation movies so I will recommend it to kids 5 and over.

Nick Park Animated Battle

Early Man 65% sweet/sour

Violence: ⭐⭐☆☆☆

Sex: ⭐☆☆☆☆

Language: ⭐☆☆☆☆

Age Rating: 5+

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit 98% sweet

Violence: ⭐⭐☆☆☆

Sex: ⭐☆☆☆☆

Language: ⭐☆☆☆☆

Age Rating: 5+

Early Man 65% sweet/sour

Storyline: ⭐⭐☆☆☆

Cast: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆

Role Models: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit 98% sweet

Storyline: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Cast: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Role Models: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

News Related to Early Man

Nick Park is creating another animation called Early Man with great cast including Eddie Redmayne, Tom Hiddleston and Timothy Spall!!

Early Man’s first reaction is so-so with us.