Psycho's Movie Reviews #71: EARLY MAN (2018)

Early Man is a 2018 British stop motion animated sports comedy film directed by Nick Park, the creator of Wallace and Gromit, written by Mark Burton and James Higginson, and starring the voices of Eddie Redmayne, Tom Hiddleston, Maisie Williams, and Timothy Spall. The film follows a tribe of primitive Stone Age valley dwellers, who have to defend their land from bronze-using invaders in a football match. The film premiered on 20 January 2018 at the BFI Southbank cinema.

Released theatrically on 26 January 2018, the film received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised the animation, voice acting, and humour, although it was deemed inferior to previous Aardman works. However, the film was also a box office bomb, only grossing $54 million against a budget of $50 million.

Plot:

In 2 million B.C. during the Neo-Pleistocene era, an asteroid collides with the prehistoric Earth, causing the extinction of planet's dinosaurs, but sparing a tribe of cavemen living near the impact site. Finding a roughly spherical chunk of the asteroid that is too hot to touch, the cavemen begin to kick it around and invent the game of football.

Centuries later during the Stone Age, in the year 1 Million B.C., the impact site has become a 100,000-acre valley. Living in the valley is a young 26-year old caveman named Dug along with the 32-year old chief Bobnar, many other cavemen such as Asbo, Gravelle, Treebor, Magma, Barry, Grubup, Thongo, and Eemak, and his pet boar Hognob. One day, Dug suggests to Bobnar that they should try hunting woolly mammoths instead of rabbits as they always do, but Bobnar brushes him off, believing the tribe could not catch mammoths.

Later that night, a mysterious army of war mammoths led by Lord Nooth, a Bronze Age governor, drives the tribe out of the valley and into the surrounding volcanic badlands, proclaiming that the Stone Age has ended and that their time has begun. Dug tries to attack the army, but falls into a cart and is unknowingly taken to Nooth's 10,000 acre Bronze Age city.

While trying to evade the guards and escape, he ends up mistaken for a football player and led onto the pitch before a full stadium crowd. He challenges Nooth's elite local team to a match with the valley at stake and promises that the tribe will work in Nooth's mines forever if they lose. Nooth dismisses the proposal at first, but changes his mind once he realises that he can profit from the match.

Nooth later receives a Message Bird from Queen Oofeefa, having got word that Nooth's football team will challenge the cavemen. Nooth believes his team will win, but Oofeefa warns him to not underestimate Dug's team.

Dug discovers that although his ancestors played football, the other members of his tribe are too dim to understand it. They get chased by a 36-foot tall duck which ends up destroying their only ball. Later that night, Dug and Hognob sneak into the Bronze Age city to steal more balls but are found by a 25-year old resident named Goona.

Resentful over the team's exclusion of women, she helps them steal some balls and agrees to coach the cavemen. Goona points out that the players on Nooth's team are talented but too egotistical to work together effectively. The cavemen improve in skill and teamwork under her coaching.

Nooth learns from his men working in the mines that the cavemen's ancestors invented football from cave paintings. He receives the Message Bird from Oofeefa again and she has also learned the cavemen's ancestors invented football as well as the fact that they have been training every day and improving. Oofeefa concludes the message by telling Nooth that he will work in the mines if he disappoints her.

Two of his men working in the mine come with copies of more cave paintings which give Nooth an idea. To demoralise Dug, Nooth has him brought to the mines and shows him cave paintings made by his tribe's ancestors who, although they had invented the game and taught other tribes to play it, proved so inept at football than other tribes that they never won a single match and eventually gave up the sport.

Nooth then offers Dug a deal which he later agrees to. On the day of the match with Oofeefa in attendance, Dug announces his forfeiture as part of the deal which spares the rest of the tribe and agrees to take their place in the mines alone.

However, his reinvigorated teammates arrive on the now tamed giant duck and persuade him to break the deal and play the match. They are down 3–1 at half-time, but rally in the second half to tie the score. Nooth incapacitates the referee and takes his place, making biased calls in favour of the local team that leads to Bobnar, who is the cavemen's goalkeeper, being knocked out.

Hognob takes his place and blocks a penalty kick, and Dug scores using a bicycle kick to win the match for the cavemen, 4–3. The cavemen win their valley back with the respect of Oofeefa (who possibly made a trophy out of a meteorite), the local team, and the crowd. Nooth tries to escape and steal the crowd's admission money, but Dug and Goona stop him with help from the giant duck. Nooth is arrested for his crimes and everyone gets their money back.

Goona and Nooth's elite local team join Dug's tribe for a hunt, but they are frightened off by a rabbit pretending to be a woolly mammoth.

Production:

In June 2007, two new films were announced by Aardman, one of them being appropriately joked as an "untitled Nick Park film, which is not another Wallace & Gromit feature film." In May 2015, it was announced that the title of the film would be Early Man, and it would be financed by the British Film Institute for $50 million.

As with previous stop motion films created by Aardman, the characters in Early Man were developed over time with the voice actors to determine the way the characters look, move, and speak. The results were turned over to the film's 35 animators to work on individualizing the characters. A crowd of people took part in an audio recording at the Memorial Stadium Home of Bristol Rovers.

Principal photography began in May 2016 and wrapped on 5 October 2017.

Release/Reception/Box Office:

Early Man was released in the United Kingdom on 26 January 2018, by StudioCanal. StudioCanal also distributed the film in France, Germany, Australia and New Zealand. In the United States, it was released on 16 February 2018, by Lionsgate, through its Summit Entertainment label.

The film opened in the United Kingdom on January 26, 2018, and opened at fourth with $2.8 million, it stayed at fourth for another two weeks until moving down to sixth on its fourth week, making $2.1 million on its second weekend (dropping by 25.8%), and $1.5 million on its third week (dropping by 26.3%).

The top five international markets for the movie were United Kingdom ($15.7 million), France ($6.7 million), Spain ($3.3 million), Germany ($1.7 million) and Italy ($1.6 million).

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 81% based on 176 reviews, and an average rating of 6.7/10, making it the lowest rated film Nick Park has made. The website's critical consensus reads, "Early Man isn't quite as evolved as Aardman's best work, but still retains the unique visuals and sweet humour that have made the studio a favourite among animation enthusiasts."

On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 68 out of 100, based on 39 critics, indicating "generally favourable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.

My Review:

I'll be honest, I am a little disappointed, considering this is from the same director as Chicken Run and Wallace and Gromit I was expecting a lot better, it's not Nick Park's best or most memorable work. The main reason I watched this is because Tom Hiddleston is in it {I'd be lying if I said most of these points just go to his performance alone}. The female protagonist, Goona, is super bland, and I guessed correctly almost every word she said. The plot is okay, I mean I certainly didn't go into this expecting the plot to be evolved around Football {Then again that's classic Brits there for ya}. The humour although silly and childish, still got a giggle out of me and my family. Although I did love Lord Nooth, Mr. Rock, the ginormous duck, and Hognob.

{However I am very confused as to why Lord Nooth has some weird speaking impediment. Like, what accent is Tom trying to do, it keeps changing from French, German and Swiss. Heck where did Nooth get that accent from, I mean his mom is British - it could be from the Dad's side, but we're never told of a King - the only other characters with the same weird accent are the football team ("Real Bronzio") and Dino}.

But that doesn't mean I didn't not like the film. All the cast had so much fun working on the film. The animation is superbly crafted and directed. Great to see some of the best British acting talent and comedians involved. There are some lol funny bits but the script and story just doesn't quite match up to some of the other Aardman films like Shaun the sheep, the Pirates and of course Wallace & Gromit. It's still enjoyable and I look forward to the next production; 9/10.