Early Man is the latest film from Aardman Animations, the studio that blessed the world with Wallace and Gromit and Chicken Run. It was founded in 1972 and flourished when recent graduate Nick Park was hired after he made half of A Grand Day Out as his graduation piece at university. Aardman hired Park so he could finish that project, and he went on to make two further Wallace and Gromit shorts in the six years following, along with the well-loved Creature Comforts television series. It was then time for the company to use their new and successful style to branch out into the world of feature-length films and created Chicken Run in 2000. Since then they have made six more features, the latest of which being Early Man, directed by Nick Park. Unfortunately for Aardman, their previous feature The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! (2012) failed to galvanize audiences at the box office and it was a while before the company could get further funding for a film not amongst the world of Wallace and Gromit.
Early Man is set in a time when dinosaurs and cave people lived together. A meteorite crashes into the earth, killing all the dinosaurs, but leaves behind a round rock which starts the tradition of playing football. Yes, you read that right, Cavemen playing football is the entire plot of this film. It is overall very underwhelming. Having come from the same minds behind the incredibly clever and amazingly designed world of Wallace and Gromit, Early Man just isn’t enough. The animation, while still hugely impressive, is of a rougher nature and interspersed with more computer-generated imagery than I believe to be necessary – which was also extremely obvious when placed next to the stop-motion action.
It’s a sad state of affairs when a company teeming with such talent and creativity is shackled and contained by the stipulations of funding. Where the other films by Aardman are clearly labours of love, Early Man seems to be the labour of necessity, a vehicle to get the company on good footing again with the studios. For that reason alone, I was praying this film was successful at the box office, but as I’m writing this the reported $50 million budget has not yet been surpassed by the intake – all this despite having the world-famous Eddie Redmayne leading the voice cast, who in my opinion was weak and mostly un-emotive.
What I can take from my experience of seeing Early Man was the joy I felt being at the Gulbenkian cinema in the middle of the day on a Sunday watching a film aimed primarily at children. I was surrounded by kids and their parents; there was noise aplenty – crinkling food wrappers and chit chat – and a young girl kicking the back of my chair, but through all this I had a fantastic time. It reminded me of how cinema was and maybe should be. The reactions were pure – one boy double fist punching the air when the Cavemen scored goals towards the end. Unfortunately for myself as a fan of their previous works, Early Man was a let-down, but undoubtedly the children loved it.
by Jack Wierenga
edited by Jules A Maines
Big Lens Film 