I watched the first 25 minutes of Early Man, and laughed a couple of times. It's pretty much a kid's movie with the same basic premise as the Indian movie Laagan; if you want to see a movie about scrappy underdogs playing soccer, it's way better than Early Man.Director Nick Park, whose Wallace and Grommet films are wonderfully funny, has somehow never been able to translate that success to anything non W&G related. Chicken Run wasn't especially funny either, but at least it had a pretty interesting story. Early Man lacks both the humor and the story that would keep me watching.Humor's a very individual thing, and I cannot deny that a lot of people in these IMDB movies find this movie very funny. But I just find that puzzling.

Almost thirty years ago, Nick Park and the talented animators of Aardman introduced the world to the cheese loving inventor Wallace and his loyal sidekick dog Gromit. Eleven years later, they made their leap into feature films with the very funny and highly creative movie "Chicken Run". Now almost ten years after his last feature film, Park returns to making feature films with "Early Man", their second attempt at telling a story about caveman as the first one was taken by DreamWorks and turned into the movie "The Croods". Though it may not quite reach the heights of Aardman's previous movies, it still has enough quirky charm that I think it pull it through.A Stone Age caveman named Dug (Eddie Redmayne) has been living his life peaceful in a valley with his tribe chasing rabbits which is what his ancestors have been doing for millions of years. However, their peace is suddenly interrupted when their valley is taken over by the evil Lord Nooth (Tom Hiddleston) who has forced them into the badlands filled with constant erupting volcanoes. Wanting their valley back, Dug accidentally entangles his tribe into a challenge of football (known to Americans as soccer) against the Bronze Age players. Unsurprisingly, no one in his tribe is quite familiar with the sport. Luckily, help does come when a vendor named Goona (Mayzie Williams) teaches them about football in hopes to get on the sacred fields where no women have ever set foot.The story is definitely not one of Aardman's strongest as it is rather predictable at times, but what makes it work are the humorous moments it has. This film is filled with plenty of hilarious moments that help keep the film afloat and also make the characters rather memorable. It's certainly rather silly at times, but that's what makes the film charming in my opinion. As for the animation, I really do love the stop motion. It's once again perfectly graceful and moves without flaws like all great stop motion movies and the character designs are also very unique and original. Though there is an issue I do have with it. At times, it was very clear that some of the film might have used green screen effects. During certain scenes most particularly the climax, it looked like the characters and the backgrounds were filmed at separate times. It was very distracting and it did bog down the film at times. The characters in the movie are great. Eddie Redymane and Mazie Williams brought a lot of likability to Dug and Goona respectively and even the tribe character all had some memorable moments. Though the character that I really loved in this movie was Lord Nooth. Tom Hiddleston must have had the time of his life playing this character because he was so funny as him. The ridiculous accent he has as well as his obsession with bronze coins were notable highlights for me. Although he certainly doesn't reach the heights that Mrs. Tweedy does in "Chicken Run", he still was a lot of fun that he became one of my favorite villains from the company so far. "Early Man" may be one of Aardman's weaker efforts, but I still feel the movie was pretty likable and fun overall. It's story was simple though still funny, it's animation is mostly great, and the characters are definitely standouts in the movie. I certainly hope that Nick Park delivers on making another great stop motion movie in the future on par with "Chicken Run" and "The Curse of the Were Rabbit", but I think I'll be happy with his latest film until then.

5/23/18. I love stop-motion animated movies. When you watch these types of movies you really have to develop an appreciation for how much work goes into making these kinds of movies - hours and hours of posing and filming miniature creations till you get that fuildy movement that makes it to the big screen. Enjoy this for the creativity. The plot was simple, so be a kid for 89 minutes.

As much as I like animation and as much as I wanted to like this particular film, honestly this is one of the most droll, drag-along films I've seen in some time. I realized halfway into it I hadn't laughed once. The characters are cliche, the plot witless, and fit only for those age 7 and under. What it lacks in humor and excitement it makes up for in predictability and banal attempts at sight-gags (emphasis on the gag). Wish I could say better about it, but it doesn't leave much room for praise. I will admit I shut it off at about exactly the halfway point, unable to stomach any more of its kindergarten mentality... so I didn't stick around and waste more time to see if it picked up any in the 2nd half. Somehow I seriously doubt I missed anything.