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the audience applauded

Good start, but then it gets ruined

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

It's a very enjoyable film that doesn't quite meet the same standards as the earlier aardman films. I think I would have enjoyed the film more if the story wasn't based around football. I'm not a great football fan and don't watch it normally so much of the humour and the parody of football didn't really work that well for me. It's a fun film though with great characters and voice acting. The animation is excellent and a pleasant change from computer generated animation. As ever with aardman the film has lots of charm and gives you a warm feeling and generally the jokes work but I was a bit disconnected with the story. I'm certainly glad I watched it though which isn't true of most films I see nowadays which often feel like I've wasted hours of my life. I watch films infrequently and can go many months without watching a film but this film basically appealed to me because of how much I've enjoyed the earlier aardman films.

The illustration of animation was good and smooth. However, the story was rather basic and few characters were engaged in the movie.

Not overly stimulating, a good story line, mixing humour with under dog courage

Aardman Animations has influenced me as an artist and storyteller since early childhood. I was always charmed by the sheer inventiveness and wit of the classic Wallace & Gromit short films, and inspired by the limitless hours of backbreaking precision that's put into stop-motion animation. Sure enough, I was very interested in Aardman's latest film Early Man. It's good, but leaves much to be desired. Early Man is a visually impressive adventure that was sadly ignored. I don't think many people realize how much explicitly detailed work was put into this film. All the characters possess their own distinct figures with several models of varying sizes and multiple facial expressions that were painstakingly constructed individually to reflect their shifting perspectives and unique personalities, respectively. The character animation is also very flowing, showing how far the stop-motion medium has evolved from its extremely choppy roots. The practical settings and computer-generated effects mix rather seamlessly. I can forgive the occasional CGI because animating a volcanic eruption practically by hand with clay lava and gray pillow fuzz acting as the smoke would appear awkward and cheesy for today's visual standards. It would look like a rushed student film than something professionally crafted for the big screen. The jungle and badlands sets were pretty standard looking but I particularly enjoyed the sequences taking place in the Bronze Age city, boasting detailed wood and bronze structures with a slight medieval approach. I wish I got to see more than just the marketplace and the football stadium, like an actual city built in a wildly creative fashion similar to the sewer version of London in Aardman's 2006 feature Flushed Away, or even something pristine yet treacherous like King's Landing in Game of Thrones. I'm certain that Aardman has concepts of more elaborate set designs filed away but the budget just couldn't support it all.Early Man may soar visually, but the story isn't anything new or memorable. It's a pretty standard family-friendly narrative with little to say morally aside from "teamwork is valuable" and it isn't anything truly offensive at the end of the day, aside from a few subtle innuendos that I personally got a chuckle out of, but Aardman has always carried a sneaky history of slipping adult humor in their family films, jokes that fly easily over a child's head. In Curse of the Were-Rabbit, the cheese-loving inventor Wallace censors his nudity with a cardboard box that has a note written "may contain nuts". Heck, Aardman has even explored some rather gritty subjects in the past. In what is perhaps their most darkest picture Chicken Run, the hens are subjected to a life designed from a World War II prisoner-of-war camp, and hens are beheaded, plucked, and eaten (off-screen) by the villainous farmers if they didn't produce enough eggs...AND THIS IS A KID'S FILM. Early Man is definitely not Chicken Run, it's probably Aardman's most lighthearted picture. The only remotely heartrending scene is when Dug discovers a sad truth about his ancestors who invented football and gains cold feet about competing with the Bronze Age team because of it, and it's not very engaging. It's resolved faster than its introduced, not leaving room to let the drama sink in. So, the story is nothing that unique and it's a bit too fast-paced to instill any emotional baggage, but at least Early Man retains the old British charm and wit that made Wallace & Gromit a worldwide sensation and it's without a doubt serviceable family entertainment. As an animation enthusiast, I had an okay time watching it. The sets look neat, the characters are plucky with a decent voice cast to support them, and I really appreciate the hard work that was put into the stop-motion animation despite that its an under-appreciated medium nowadays that promises little monetary gain. Overall, it's like eating a good meal, going back for seconds, and finding no leftovers to savor. I just wish there was something more special for solitary comment, something that made Early Man reach the timeless heights of Wallace & Gromit, but it's as average as a family film can be.