Beneath the charming spectacle of stop motion, Early Man suffers from a hollow script and unmemorable sequences that result in a film likely to be buried in the annals of animation history.
Dug (Eddie Redmayne), a caveman living in a tribe led by Chief Bobnar (Timothy Spall), challenges the Bronze Age football team to get their valley back. If they lose, they’ll have to work in the mines.
The initial few minutes of Early Man are the best moments of the film. There are prehistoric jokes that are silly but somehow works and then there is the charming animation style using clay and stop motion. We see Bobnar using a beetle as a shaving machine, which is ridiculous but makes you laugh, nonetheless. There is a scene where Dug explains the rules of football to his tribe, and it goes disastrously.
The antagonist of the film is Lord Nooth (Tom Hiddleston), who plays the character with playful glee, but the film soon loses its appeal. The film, while amusing, has nothing memorable in terms of character. You likely won’t even remember their names as the film goes by. There is a character by the name of Goona (Maisie Williams), a girl shunned from playing football, but this important element of her character never gets brought up after it’s established, and there is nothing in the film that makes us relate to the pain of these characters or understand their struggle.
Beneath the charming spectacle of stop motion, Early Man suffers from a hollow script and unmemorable sequences that result in a film likely to be buried in the annals of animation history.
Dug (Eddie Redmayne), a caveman living in a tribe led by Chief Bobnar (Timothy Spall), challenges the Bronze Age football team to get their valley back. If they lose, they’ll have to work in the mines.
The initial few minutes of Early Man are the best moments of the film. There are prehistoric jokes that are silly but somehow works and then there is the charming animation style using clay and stop motion. We see Bobnar using a beetle as a shaving machine, which is ridiculous but makes you laugh, nonetheless. There is a scene where Dug explains the rules of football to his tribe, and it goes disastrously.
The antagonist of the film is Lord Nooth (Tom Hiddleston), who plays the character with playful glee, but the film soon loses its appeal. The film, while amusing, has nothing memorable in terms of character. You likely won’t even remember their names as the film goes by. There is a character by the name of Goona (Maisie Williams), a girl shunned from playing football, but this important element of her character never gets brought up after it’s established, and there is nothing in the film that makes us relate to the pain of these characters or understand their struggle.
