Early Man Review

Early Man is a mediocre movie and a disappointment from Aardman Animations.  This movie is about a caveman, named Dug, who along with his tribe must unite against Lord Nooth and the Bronze Age to save their home. Tom Hiddleston is by far the best part of this movie. He does a great job playing Lord Nooth and his character is frequently hilarious.  Eddie Redmayne did a good job voicing the character of Dug, although he does not have much to work with.  Maisie Williams is better as the voice of Goona. Her character has the biggest character arc in the movie. Timothy Spall is great voicing the head of the tribe. However, he is severely underused. As for the rest of the voice cast including Nick Park, Mark Williams and Rob Brydon, they all do decent voice work but no one stands out. Nick Park does an okay job directing, but this is easily his worst movie in years. The screenplay by Mark Burton and James Higginson is not without its moments. There are two running jokes throughout the movie that made me laugh every time. However, so much of this humor relies on the knowledge of British Futbol that I did not understand half of the jokes. This movie is animated in claymation and while some scenes were incredible to look at, others were ugly and way too creepy for this kind of movie. At an incredibly short 89 minutes this movie still feels too long. Overall, Early Man was a mediocre movie that I can only recommend to hardcore fans of claymation. 

5.5/10