Early Man hits its peak early – like, right away – in a witty, dialogue-free prologue that imagines the dawn of soccer taking place when an errant meteor slams down on prehistoric Earth and startled cavemen kick around its burning-embers remains. It’s a hoot.
Sorry, scratch soccer. This is a British entertainment, so we’re talking football here, and a lot of it. After that prologue, the action jumps ahead to a slightly less prehistoric time, set at the seam of the Stone and Bronze ages. A peaceful tribe, including the blandly nice Dug (voiced by Redmayne), is uprooted from its verdant home by an invading, heavily armored force led by the nefarious Lord Nooth (Hiddleston). Shenanigans ensue – a castle break-in, mistaken identity – and then the underdog Dug challenges Nooth and his star team to a match to win back their valley.
Early Man checks all the boxes you’d expect from an animated picture targeted at kids – the correct messages about teamwork and perseverance, a giggling commitment to slapstick. But in comparison to other stop-motion works by Nick Park – one of the principal creative forces at Aardman Animations and co-director of the delightful Chicken Run and The Curse of the Were-Rabbit – Early Man is wanting: of a cleverer narrative, of memorable characters. It’s not bad, necessarily. It just feels like an early draft of a better movie to come.
This article appears in February 16 • 2018.
