Films > Film Reviews

Early Man

Cinema City

03/02/18

I was nearly late for Early Man. Well, I got there just in time to watch the the Jurassic Age flit past and to see the arrival of the Stone Age, heralded by button-nosed, elastic-cheeked Dug (Eddie Redmayne). As soon as he bounded on screen, it was clear that he was basically a younger, spunkier Wallace, before the cheese got to him, whilst his wild boar side-kick Hobnob was none other than a primordial incarnation of Gromit.

Dug’s tribe is resistant to the idea of hunting mammoth, feeling that rabbits are challenging enough as it is, but when the shiny spiky forces of the Bronze Age bulldoze their way into their perfect meteor-crater Eden, it’s time to adapt or perish for our little Plasticine primates.  

Featuring the creamy cream of Britain’s best dairy products, we see (or hear) Rob Brydon voice act several characters, most notably comedy double-act and football commentating duo Brian and Bryan. Further English delicacies arrive in the form of Miriam Margolyes as the perpetually indignant Queen Oofeefa and Richard Ayoade as Treebor, an awkward teenager eternally embarrassed by his mum’s flirtations (“Awwwww, muuuum!”).   

Tom Hiddleston languishes in the role of camp, plump, parsnip-nosed leader of the bronze age, Lord Nooth. With his slightly sickening track record for playing suave, chiselled and annoyingly tanned and athletic protagonists, it’s nice to see Hiddleston flexing his acting muscles and giving the dark side another go after Loki (if the dark side had a penchant for awkward massages and rubbing coins on its face).

Maisie Williams is a joy as bronze pan vendor by day, secret football prodigy by night Goona, even if her accent (stuck somewhere obscure between French, German, English and American) is a little confusing. With her no-nonsense assertiveness and enduring optimism, she makes for a wonderful heroine, and by not being sexualised in any way, unlike many an animated Disney, Dreamworks or Pixar heroine aimed at a similar audience, her being the Bronze Age’s first female football player gives young girls an honest and aspirational idol in a world of largely damaging archetypes.

The many millennia of distance, allows Aardman to explore problems of our current day through many ingenious parallels with current concerns, such as anxieties about modern technology, gender inequality and classism in a way that is cutting without being accusatory and thought-provoking without detracting from the good old-fashioned tale of cavepeople playing premium league football.

Rest assured, Nick Park’s work has lost none of the madcap shenanigans of its animated descendants, and with the help of a giant mallard duck, a massaging hog and several scheming rabbits, Aardman’s position as champions of children and pet-friendly adventures remains unparalleled. As always, it’s a gag-a-second, flaunting its intergenerational humour with flare. It’s not quite Wallace and Gromit level genius, as the slapstick does become a little Punch and Judy at times, but it’s certainly a quality wedge of tomfoolery, with even the odd joke for the Trump haters thrown in there.

With a rock-solid reputation for dealing out puns-a-plenty, Early Man looks set to remain the unrivalled family movie of the year and will maintain its position in the rankings for many Ages to come.

8/10