* * *
I could have walked out of the
first ten minutes of Early Man and I
would have been convinced I saw one of the best animated features of 2018 (I’m
aware it’s only February).
There are no words. Literally
(just a few Cro-Magnon grunts). It opens in the desolate badlands of a B.C.
Earth, where humanity scurries at the feet of the dominant dinosaurs. Then, the
meteor strikes. The dinosaurs are wiped out to extinction, but man is okay.
They come out of their hovels and wander about when one of them comes across a
uniquely patterned red-hot rock (it almost looks like a 20-sided die owned by
Satan). One of the Neanderthals picks it up, realizes his hands are baking,
then hurls it toward one of the others – they react the same way, soon
realizing its wiser to kick it around instead of pick it back up. This
charmingly transitions from slapstick to sport – this is perhaps the first game
of soccer (football for any English readers) ever played.
Save for the trailer, I had
little idea that this was going to be a sports movie of sorts, but this opening
was so fun I was welcome to anything at
this point.
Fast forward a few
generations, where we follow the misadventures of caveman Dug (Eddie Redmayne).
He belongs to a tribe of fellow cavemen headed by Chief Bobnar (Timothy Spall).
They “specialize” in hunting rabbits, but Dug strives for a bit more in life,
but otherwise has a comfortable and peaceful life in the Valley.
Until the Bronze Age, that is.
Beyond the Valley, the Bronze
Age has settled into the world quite nicely, but the riches of their
industrious innovation just isn’t enough for Lord North (Tom Hiddleston).
Bronze means money, and he needs more of it. The result: his forces roll into
the Valley and drive our underdog cavemen out into the unforgiving wilderness
of the badlands. Though the rest of the tribe are unhappily content in their
involuntarily exile, Dug is furious and wants his home back. Long story short,
he gets his chance when he discovers the game of football, which is the sport
of choice in Bronze territory.
What follows is a story of
underdogs rising above in spite of the odds towering against them, and this is Early Man’s weakest element. As far as
the plot itself goes, it is exactly what you’d expect and everything wraps up
how you’d expect. I have no problem with a vanilla-sounding story; it all
depends on what is done with the material. Unfortunately, Early Man doesn’t really do anything unique with the plot, and the
resulting predictability leaves too much to be desired.
That said, what Early Man lacks in story it makes up for
in comedy. As you could imagine with this material, there’s plenty of slapstick
to go around – the audience seemed to really enjoy a scene where a character
falls down multiple sets of stadium seats. While there’s nothing particularly
genius, there is some clever comedy gold here and there (a recurring joke with
a messenger bird made me lose it). There’s also a hilarious scene involving Dug’s
trusty warthog and Lord North taking a bath.
As for the characters…one of
the central themes of Early Man is
that of coming together in tough situations, but that feeling is never terribly
prevalent within the tribe of our heroes. I think this because a lack of fully
developed characters. Granted, they do have different personalities that set
them apart from each other, but nothing strong enough to make them memorable
characters. With the exception of two. I rather enjoyed Goona (Maisie
Williams), a girl of the Bronze community who wishes for her big moment on the
football field (and may or may not be a skilled player). Lord North is one of
those silly villains that we love to hate – he just may be the best part of the
movie.
In spite of the inconsistency
of character quality, all of the voice actors were wonderful (Hiddleston
especially), and their enjoyment for the project proves contagious as it washes
over onto the audience.
I could almost say that Early Man has some of Aardman’s best
animation to date, but that’s a statement that would require more than just a
grain of salt. It’s been a minute since I’ve seen a film from Aardman
Animations – as a matter of fact, I think the last one I saw of theirs was Chicken Run back in 2000, as well as
bits and pieces of Wallace and Gromit over
the years.
Regardless, though, Early Man is an exemplary achievement in
stop-motion animation. Not only are the worlds imagined to every single detail,
but there is always something going on, whether it be leaves rustling or a
butterfly idling. Double impressive that all of these miniscule details are
still present even when the action kicks up to the point where we’d never pay
attention to the background. Remember: it’s the little details that cultivate
into the big picture.
There is an inimitable appeal
to the works of Aardman Animations that always make for an enjoyable experience
no matter what. Early Man is no exception
to this standard, but the all-too predictable story prevents me from giving
it glowing recommendation. Nonetheless, it is still fun and good-spirited enough
that I can assure you that there is at least some enjoyment to be had.
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