In a rare case of a supporting player overtaking the popularity of his former co-stars, Shaun the Sheep clearly has stolen the Aardman spotlight, since his unassuming debut in 1995’s Oscar-winning Wallace & Gromit animated claymation short, A Close Shave.
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| When one of the flock members accidentally grows a cauliflower, instead of a pumpkin, Shaun naturally has the perfect solution. |
Much of Shaun’s charm — and that of his co-stars — comes from the fact that their adventures take place without any intelligible dialog, making them viewable anywhere in the world. That also requires shrewdly clever scripting, along with carefully directed voice talent. The result is always impressive; it’s amazing how posture, facial expressions, finely shaded baaas and bleats (by the sheep), and equally expressive grunts, groans, ums, ohs and other auditory squawks (by the humans) can convey comprehensible thoughts and intentions.
Park has stepped back to a supervisorial position this time, entrusting Shaun’s third big-screen adventure to directors Steve Cox and Matthew Walker, and writers Mark Burton and Giles Pilbrow. They’ve concocted a delightful, October-themed escapade that frequently dabbles in Golden Age Hollywood horror movie tropes.
With Halloween just a few days away, Shaun (voiced by Justin Fletcher) and his sheep cohorts — Hazel, Nuts, plump Shirley, the Twins, little Timmy and Timmy’s Mum — have spent the month carefully tending their pumpkin patch, which has been concealed from the Farmer (John Sparkes), guard dog Bitzer (also Sparkes) and the farm’s snarky, destructive pigs.
The Farmer, in turn, has been eagerly awaiting the annual hoedown-themed Halloween dance in the nearby town of Mossingham. He also hopes to reveal his romantic feelings for the local vet (Nina Sosanya) by inviting her along, but his poor self-esteem focuses on his baldness. He yearns for his youthful days, when his lustrous locks helped him become a heavy metal cowboy (a mirthful look, captured in a prized snapshot he yearningly eyes).
If only he could grow back his hair...
Unfortunately, the Farmer’s inherent clumsiness prompts a fresh catastrophe, when he accidentally destroys all of the sheeps’ prized pumpkins, much to Timmy’s wailing consternation. Desperately seeking some sort of remedy, Shaun stumbles upon an old book titled Homemade Science ... which, due to some conveniently placed grime on the cover, actually seems to be titled Mad Science.
This is where Shaun always gets into trouble, because his intelligence, inspiration and imagination always overwhelm anything approaching common sense.
In the blink of a wooly eye, Shaun commandeers the nearby old mill, drags in all manner of supplies from a local junkyard, and transforms the structure’s interior into a lab straight out of the iconic set design for 1931’s Frankenstein. Whipping a progressively complex series of formulae onto a chalkboard, then rigging the windmill to supply electricity to a chaotic collection of beakers, flasks, retorts, filters, funnels, condensers, extractors and tubing, Shaun concocts a viscous, luminescent orange substance that he carefully pours into one of the Farmer’s discarded hair tonic bottles.
(You know where this is going, right?)
Lovingly digging a fresh hole in the former pumpkin patch, and gently placing a single pumpkin seed inside, Shaun applies a single drop of the tonic. He then buries the seed, and the bottle carelessly goes astray...
...and is recovered by the Farmer, who is surprised to discover that it isn’t empty after all. He therefore squirts a generous dollop of the orange goop onto his scalp, with stray drops landing elsewhere on his anatomy.
The following morning, Shaun and his friends are surprised — and initially delighted — to discover not just one gorgeously large pumpkin, but at least a dozen of them. Unfortunately, the bright orange gourds keep growing...
The poor Farmer, meanwhile, has been buried beyond recognition beneath a shaggy explosion of bright orange fur. When eventually spotted by the vet, she understandably believes him to be a Bigfoot. Given her love and kindness toward all animals, she arranges to have him shipped to distant Bigfoot Island, located in the ocean just southeast of Bighand Island. (Hey, nobody ever implied that Shaun’s adventures take place in our real world.)
Naturally, Shaun, Bitzer and the flock can’t allow this to happen ... but how can they prevent it?
Cue an increasingly wild and hilarious series of set-pieces, involving misunderstandings, near-misses, Robe Goldberg-esque Bigfoot traps, and a pitchfork-wielding gaggle of angry townsfolk also straight out of 1931’s Frankenstein. Along the way, Burton and Pilbrow take trenchant, well-aimed shots at self-absorbed social media influencers, mob mentality, and clueless teenagers who miss these proceedings while immersed in screens.
We also get a gentle ecological message, focused on the harmful ways plastic and other trash items impact sea creatures.
None of this interferes with the film’s overall sense of giddy, silly pleasure. Everything is fueled by Natalie Holt’s energetic orchestral score, which boasts occasional iconic cues from the likes of Psycho, and adds comical textures with instruments such as a theremin and electronic ondes Martenot.
At an economical 81 minutes, Cox and Walker know when to get off the stage. But don’t depart too quickly; the initial end credits offer more fun animated moments, against a “Halloween Mix” — featuring the hip hop duo Rizzle Kicks — of Shaun’s familiar theme, “Life’s a Treat.”
Indeed it is.
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