If you’re a child of the 2000s’, you probably remember a brief time when talking animal movies ruled the airwaves. Think Babe, Cats & Dogs, Charlotte’s Web – stories where a colourful cast of animals go on various adventures, all while their human companions are none the wiser about their rich inner worlds.
The Sheep Detectives, directed by Kyle Balda of Minions fame, feels like a perfect homage to that specific film micro-genre. The story follows a shepherd (played by none other than Hugh Jackman) who lovingly tends to his small flock of sheep, even reading them detective stories every night. When he is found dead under mysterious circumstances, his sheep take it upon themselves to use the problem-solving skills they’ve learned to investigate his murder.
When it comes to a talking animal film, the visual effects are an often-overlooked, but absolutely crucial, even load-bearing, pillar. Make the animals too photorealistic, and you risk having a cast that can’t emote — see the response to the much-maligned Lion King live-action remake — but if you make them too cartoony, you risk falling into the Uncanny Valley instead.
The Sheep Detectives walks this visual effects tightrope with flying colours. Brought to life by Framestore, the visual effects studio behind the Paddington movies, the sheep seamlessly transition between photo-realistic and stylised expressions, perfectly selling each scene they’re in. In fact, I’m still not entirely sure if the sheep were actual sheep with CGI faces perfectly tacked onto them, or if they were wholly CGI creations. Either way, I never once found a scene with the sheep unsettling or unbelievable.
The sheeps’ performance was complemented by stellar voice acting from an all-star cast. Julia Louis-Dreyfus voices the film’s protagonist, a brown sheep named Lily, who forms the warm, fuzzy heart of the film with her blend of determination and naivete; supported by Chris O’ Dowd, who plays the slightly wiser white sheep Mopple. Bryan Cranston puts on a startlingly magnetic performance as the literal black sheep Sebastian, whose jaded, standoffish personality often puts him at odds with the rest of the flock.
The human cast is no less entertaining. Hugh Jackman gets to hang up the spandex and dip into his softer side as the kind shepherd George Hardy, whose scenes, albeit short, immediately sell us on why his sheep would fight so hard to bring him justice. Nicholas Galitzine and Nicholas Braun also deliver perfectly comic turns as a gung-ho junior reporter from the big city and the bumbling sole cop of a small town, respectively.
Honestly, the only thing that took me out of the story was that George’s will and inheritance was a central part of the plot, as they were a key part of the murderer’s motive. Though he does a great job, I found it pretty hard to believe that a character played by 57-year-old Hugh Jackman — who looks ten years younger thanks to his superhero diet and training — would already have his last will and testament drawn up. Perhaps Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen just weren’t available for the role?
Verdict:8.5/10
The Sheep Detectives is a fun, entertaining romp that harkens back to the childrens’ movies of yore, weaving a mostly comedic story with moments of genuine depth and emotion that are sure to tug at your heartstrings, especially if you’re an animal lover.
As an aside to parents planning to see the film with young children, the film contains a few scenes of non-explicit human and animal death, with themes of death and grieving being a central part of the story. Though nothing gory or violent is shown, this might open up conversations you may or may not be ready to have with your kid.
